2020 FINANCIAL REPORT
Unaudited Financial Statement, Year Ended 31 December 2020 and Year Ended 31 December 2019.
SUMMARY
Due to our unique funding structure and set up, we are committed to being transparent and diligent around all operating costs. During 2020, our strategic focus was to continue to demonstrate cost-effectiveness of the entity, and this has been proven with over a 30% year-on-year net cost reduction to £32.7m.
Total Income, which reflects a growing number of participants utilising open banking services, grew to £3.4m. This has helped reduce the overall cost position of the Entity.
DIRECTORY
The Directory team is responsible for the maintenance and development of the trust and identity framework required to deliver and support the open banking ecosystem and other agreed propositions.
SHARED SERVICES
The Shared Services team provide a centralised business unit focussed on enabling, delivering, and running defined business services (including Finance, Human Resources, Programme Management, Risk Management, Security & Counter-fraud) that are fit for purpose and cost efficient.
ECOSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
The Ecosystem team is responsible for providing support to new participants of open banking- enabled products and services and increasing adoption through participant engagement and the development of propositions in line with ecosystem capabilities and the needs of the participants.
STANDARDS / POLICY
The Standards team are responsible for the delivery of a best-in-class standard and the associated conformance tools for open banking APIs.
The Policy team are the centre of excellence for policy development, providing legal, regulatory, public policy and external communications advice in support of the delivery of the implementation of the CMA Order
CENTRAL OFFICE
Central Office holds the Programme Director and staff not in individual teams, together with central budget items.
OFFICE OF TRUSTEE
The Office of the Trustee has the responsibility for ensuring the implementation and supervision of the Order. The combination of financial information for the Office of the Trustee and Central Office is for simplicity of reporting only.
TOTAL NET COSTS TREND
The cost trend reflects the changing type of activity within the Programme of work into 2019, but also a significant focus on efficiency in the open banking strategy delivering significant savings year-on-year into 2020.
No costs related to OBIE future state activities are provided for in the forecast financials.
COSTS BY ROLE
The diagram below represents an allocation of the total cost base into the three categories of activity aligned to the CMA mandate.
Supervisory is carried out primarily by the Monitoring and Management Information teams. Shaping and Championing is the work of our Policy, Standards, Ecosystem and Stakeholder Engagement teams. Provision of critical services is carried out by the Product, Directory, Shared Services, and Insight, Experience and Support teams.
NON EMPLOYEE COST BY CLASSIFICATION
The diagram below shows the different cost centres which account for our non employee costs.
Software / Service providers mainly consist of outsourced services such as Directory services, Security Operations and Service Desk and Microsoft 365 services.
Other key suppliers cover licensing and identity verification services. External Consultancy Support spend mainly consists of customer research related expenditure, Public Relations and Affairs, and Ecosystem Engagement.
Premises and Facilities reflects the charges for office space rent, rates and facilities management services for the premises at 2 Thomas More Square. Footprint has been reduced during 2020.
Workshops / PR / Communication costs reflect the pandemic and networking restrictions.
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