New figures published show that customer use of Open Banking in the UK has surpassed the 1 million customer mark for the first time. Customer numbers have grown strongly, doubling in six months.
Open Banking adoption surges past 1 million customers
The legislation that underpins Open Banking, the second Payments Services Directive (PSD2), came into effect two years ago. Following a period of implementation Open Banking technology now allows consumers and small businesses to connect their bank accounts with authorised third parties.
OB customers generate over 200 million monthly API calls, driven by over 200 active service providers. In addition to established ‘account aggregation’ players such as Yolt, services now cover personal finance advice, accountancy services, credit rating and charitable donations.
“The UK has led the way internationally in the development of Open Banking, which supports our objective of promoting effective competition in the interests of consumers. We welcome the growth in take up of OB and support its continuing development,” says Christopher Woolard, Executive Director of Strategy and Competition, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
“As we look forward, we also want to consider the potential benefits that could come from giving consumers and businesses control over a wider range of their financial data – so called Open Finance. We recently published a Call for Input on Open Finance and welcome views on what is needed to ensure it develops in the best interest of consumers and what role we should play.”
Innovation is further driven by The Open Up 2020 Challenge, run by Nesta Challenges in partnership with Open Banking Limited. The 15 finalists cover a range of new services such as credit rating for renters (Canopy), financial vulnerability protection (Toucan, Kalgera), mortgages (Mojo), charitable donations (Sustainably) and artificial intelligence (Cleo, Plum). Open Banking is now also moving into the Payments realm, with over 50,000 payments made last month.
The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), the entity set up by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to deliver OB in the UK, shows the growth in customers has doubled in six months. These figures only represent customers of the CMA9, the nine biggest current account providers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland*.
Open Banking currently covers personal and business current accounts, credit cards and online e-money accounts. Currently there are 204 regulated providers, up from 100 at the end of 2018.
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