The UK fintech industry has welcomed the recommendations from the open banking regulator for the next phase of open banking. This was stated by the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC). his recommendations ensure that open banking develops in a “safe, scalable and economically sustainable manner”.
To this end, the JROC, which succeeded the Open Banking Implementation Organization (OBIE), identified five key steps. He hopes to increase affordability and productivity, reduce the risks of financial crime, and provide effective consumer protection if something goes wrong. He also recommended improving information flows to third party vendors and end users and promoting value-added variable recurring payment (VRP) services for use as a pilot project. VRPs not only allow people to change payment amounts, which direct debits already do, but also allow them to limit the amount given out for any given payment and limit the total amount paid out over a given period.
In a joint statement, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Payments System Regulator, who jointly oversee JROC, said: “Open banking has the potential to be a UK success story and we want to help it grow and develop in a sustainable manner. Today’s report sets out a roadmap and framework for realizing the next phase of open banking.
“It is only through effective collaboration that we can realize our ambitions and develop open banking in a way that promotes continuous innovation and competition for the benefit of consumers, businesses and the economy as a whole.”
Over 4,800 people work in open banking in the UK and the industry raised over £886m last year, according to a recent report by the independent advocacy group the Digital Economy Coalition (Coadec).
In 2018, UK banks were required to implement open banking rules from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), leading to the development of application programming interfaces (APIs) in banking to give consumers more control over their accounts.
The ultimate goal was to increase competition in a sector dominated by large financial companies. Customer banking data is shared within the industry via APIs with customer permission, allowing companies to offer customized products.
More than seven million people in the UK used open banking last year, marking five years since the competition regulator forced banks to introduce services. According to data provided to building societies by Open Banking Limited, over the past year two million users have been added to them.
City Minister Andrew Griffith said: “The UK is leading the way in open banking with 7 million users, but we can’t sit back and lift our feet. Today’s plan will deliver a new generation of products and services, making banking more accessible and convenient for millions of people.”
Janine Hirt, CEO of fintech trading organization Innovate Finance, said: “We applaud the focus of the next steps on efficiency and adoption by all banks, further anti-fraud actions, support for open banking payment services and other variable regular payment products. These are the key projects that our members have identified as priorities. Now we need to see the pace and dynamics.
“We also applaud the government’s commitment not only to improving open banking, but also to developing a roadmap for extending open finance to other financial services and greater use of open data. Together, open banking, open finance and open data provide the foundation for future innovation and consumer benefits.”
Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless, said the report was a major milestone on the path to open banking in the UK. “We applaud that JROC is prioritizing the rollout of VRPs so that more UK businesses and consumers can benefit from them. I’m also happy to see the attention to technical but important issues that need to be addressed in the background.
“First of all, the report highlights the need for government, regulators and industry actors to work together to realize the JROC vision. There is no time to waste and we are happy to play our part,” Takeuchi added.