RegTech 2020: The rise of Open Banking

This month on the RegTech 20:20 podcast, host Alex Ford is joined by industry experts Gavin Littlejohn, Chairman of The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) and Jamie Leach, Regional Director of FDATA ANZ and Founder of Open Data Australia, to discuss developments in Open Banking, and the place of RegTech.

Today, the focus is on the digital customer experience and the insight offered indicates that there has been a major shift in the FinTech ecosystem as a source of potential innovation for banks, rather than being a direct competitive challenge.

In the podcast, Alex quizzes Jamie on the concept of sharing data and the impact of the introduction of Open Banking rules under the Consumer Data Right (CDR) in Australia. Jamie shares that it is an exciting time to be involved in the sector:

“…what we really need to consider is that Open Banking in Australia is very different to Open Banking in the UK. Really, what has spurred Open Banking in Australia under the Consumer Data Right is the pursuit of creating greater competition and greater innovation, while allowing consumers to do more with their data.”

Gavin, who has many years of experience in the industry and, as well as his role with FDATA is also a key member of the UK Open Banking Implementation Entity, speaks on the theme of advocating Open Finance in the UK.,’

Delving deeper into Open Banking, he highlights the fact that it has been an interesting journey and states that “the important thing to understand is the difference between the UK’s Open Banking order and the wider payment services directive.”

Not only concentrating on Australia, Jamie also works across the sector in the UK and, also looking at its evolvement here, she suggests that the people creating the rules are now taking notice, adding: “We are just getting started – the UK has been at it for nearly three years and it is still gaining momentum.” 

With regards to future predictions, Jamie believes “It’s going to take 12, 18 or 24 months before we see any mainstream major adoption and where the potential of Open Banking can go in this market”

Moving to the  differences between Open Finance and Open Banking. Gavin defines the latter  as “payment initiation and access to payment data, which enables a third-party provider or fintech with a customer relationship to initiate a payment and get access to the data relating to transactions.”

“…the concept of Open Banking is a bit like electricity – you don’t use it directly; you use an appliance that uses it. This could mean loans, money management apps, or cloud accounting platforms, which all use Open Banking.” 

Throughout the episode, both guests provide interesting insights and hint at the significant potential of Open Banking.and the connection to RegTech within this domain.

It is clear that what we see today is only the beginning. Despite the industry still being in the early stages of implementation in almost all cases, there is increasing interest in moving beyond this to include a far broader spread of financial products.

You can listen to the full episode at https://www.encompasscorporation.com/regtech2020-podcast/ or across all major platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.