Sunday 13 January 2019 is the first anniversary of Open Banking, the central element of the remedies package the CMA put in place to tackle the competition problems we found in our market investigation into the UK’s retail banking market.
The CMA found that older, larger banks don’t have to work hard enough for customers’ business, while smaller and newer banks found it difficult to grow and access the market. As a result, the bigger banks had commanded a very large share of the market for decades. We believe the adoption of Open Banking technology and processes (specifically, common and open standards for data, security and APIs) has the potential to revolutionise the banking market by allowing new, innovative providers of banking services into the market.
Open Banking has already made huge strides over the past 12 months, though it’s still in the initial stages of roll-out. We’re delighted that around 200 organisations are now in the process of coming onboard - including some of the major tech companies - and we anticipate this technology will revolutionise how banking operates and people manage their money in the years ahead.
Last month, I was invited to make a keynote speech at FinTech Taipei on how the CMA has led on open banking in the UK and to participate in panels with industry regulators, bank representatives and Fintechs. Taipei was a great place to showcase the CMA’s world-leading Open Banking remedies. In addition to the conference itself, the British Office in Taipei organised separate meetings with Taiwan’s equivalent of the FCA and with legislators pushing for greater innovation in retail banking.
It was a huge event with over 32,000 visitors – including 1,200 conference attendees – passing through the doors of the Taipei World Trade Centre. High profile attendees included senior politicians, banking, finance and Fintech CEOs from around the region. The opening ceremony featured a dazzling display of traditional Chinese drumming by a local percussion group.
It was clear at this conference that the UK is still the global pioneer in Open Banking, although other jurisdictions are following us rapidly, including:
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- Hong Kong
- Israel
- Japan
- Malaysia
- New Zealand
- Singapore
- and now Taiwan
As one speaker at the conference commented, this global pattern of adoption is beginning to resemble not so much a splash or a wave, but a tide, which we expect will continue to gain momentum in the year ahead.
Read more about FinTech Taipei 2018.
Find out more about the CMA's retail banking market investigation.
1 comment
Comment by Sebastian posted on
Awesome website!
Thanks for your work and for the info!
Keep going!