UK’s biggest lenders’ missed deadlines surfaced around the open banking rules. Are banks stalling the inevitable future of Open Banking?

In a statement to pymnts.com, a spokesperson for HSBC said the FI remained “committed to delivering Open Banking.” A Barclays spokesperson said its APIs are “built and ready” but that the bank needs more time to test the solutions. Santander similarly said it was “committed” to the initiative and said “nearly all Santander personal and business current account customers” will see the Open Banking changes by the deadline. According to an RBS spokesperson, “Whilst the vast majority of the work needed to fulfill our Open Banking obligations have been completed, the service for our Bankline commercial customers will be finalized by Feb. 12 so that all our customers have the best experience possible.”

Open banking is set to make a transformational change to banking for personal customers and small businesses, forcing UK banks to open up their data via a set of secure application programming interfaces (APIs). This will bring banks to shift from being one-stop-shops for financial services to open platforms where consumers can start to embrace a more modular approach to banking by giving verified third-parties direct access to this data.

Under these changes, the challenger banks are up for a win-win situation since they can now offer personalized solutions to their customers while the move for a customer from one bank account to another becomes easier.

Millennial Intervention accelerates the Open Banking Movement

In a way, millennial banking habits have accelerated this demand of an open banking system. In a world where all other industries have started to serve their millennials at the speed and scale to keep them engaged, this puts a huge pressure on banks to innovate in such a way that millennials witness personalized banking experiences intuitively at the speed of light.

Points highlighted here will be discussed in the 2nd session of the Millennial Banking Day on February 1st. Srini Peyyalamitta, Head of Banking & Finance Services, Aspire Systems and Olivier, Global Marketing Director, HID are teaming up to discuss reasons for banks to miss these open banking deadlines and how banks can start to detect early successes with open banking. Know More

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