By Todd Clyde, CEO

While the road to API connectivity has not been smooth, solid progress is being made in connecting banks to third parties, says Token’s CEO, Todd Clyde.

You have probably seen the headlines about banks not being ready for PSD2 – as the deadline approached and then passed, they were hard to miss. While it is true that less than 50% of banks have met all of the requirements mandated by the EU legislation, this is far from the full story. The open banking outlook for Europe is, in fact, brighter than perhaps you have been led to believe.

Let’s jump back to 14^th March, the deadline by which European banks were required to have their ‘dedicated interface’ (open API) ready for testing by PISPs and AISPs. This was the litmus test for banks to prove PSD2 readiness and indicate their willingness to embrace the move towards open financial services. Not a straightforward task especially given the tight timescales, yet 90% of the 2,000 largest banks across Europe did produce the sandboxes and documentation required in time. Considering the scope of this exercise, that’s not a percentage to be scoffed at.

True, it hasn’t been plain sailing. Research, including our own, indicates that less than half of the European banks were ready to go live with their APIs before the 14^th September production deadline. But did anyone really expect anything different? And are things really as bleak as others are making out? The short answer is no.

Open banking in the UK

In the UK…