Open banking in the UK has reached its eighth anniversary, with more than 16.5 million user connections live across the UK.
Editorial
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The milestone comes as the FCA, in a recent letter to the Prime Minister, identified open banking as a key initiative to drive national growth and unlock new use cases, particularly SME lending.
Since its launch in January 2018, open banking has evolved from a regulatory initiative, instigated under the Competition and Markets Authority’s Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017, into a core part of the UK’s financial infrastructure.
The open banking ecosystem now comprises 145 authorised third-party providers, with account-to-account payments growing rapidly as businesses and consumers switch from costly credit card payments to pay-by-bank options.
The infrastructure, standards and lessons developed through open banking are forming the basis for open finance, supporting new data-sharing services across areas such as pensions, investments, insurance, energy, telecoms, and housing.
Commenting on the anniversary, Henk van Hulle, CEO of Open Banking Limited, says: “In just eight years, Open Banking Limited has helped build an ecosystem that people and businesses across the UK now use as part of everyday financial life, sometimes without even realising. The UK has created something genuinely world-leading; the priority now is to put the right long-term structures in place so that advantage is protected and can continue to grow to support as many businesses and consumers as possible to better engage with, and make the most of, their finances.”