There are now more than five million active users of open banking services in the UK, five hundred thousand up on January's headline total, with tax payments driving the growth in numbers.
Based on data provided by the CMA9, the nine banks and building society mandated to implement open banking in the UK, the new figures reflect a healthy trajectory. It took 10 months to grow the number of users from one million to two million in 2020. In contrast, it has taken just four months to grow from four million to more than five million.
Presenting the results, the Open Banking Implementation Entity says there were nearly 625,000 additional payments in January 2022 compared with December 2021.
A significant factor in this payments growth was HMRC’s incorporation of a ‘Pay by bank‘ option into its annual self-assessment process, which took the total number of payments made via open banking to 3.86m in January 2022. This is an increase of 19.3% on December 2021.
David Beardmore, ecosystem development director at the OBIE, says that as well as increased adoption, the numbers provide a clear demonstration to the wider open banking community that open banking is here to stay.
“This is positive news for all involved in open banking - for those entrepreneurs who have built fintech businesses based on the foundations of open banking, for the investment community funding the continued expansion of products and services, and for government as it continues to examine how best to extend open banking functionality into other areas of the economy.”