FOREWORD
Henk Van Hulle, OBL CEO
We are pleased to publish OBL’s seventh Open Banking Impact Report, which offers a unique analysis of open banking adoption and use in the UK.
This latest report paints a particularly positive picture.
Our research, based on data from the CMA9 banks, has charted the journey of open banking payments and data since March 2021, when 1 in 17 consumers and businesses were using this financial innovation, to 1 in 5 in March 2025. Continuing with this level of growth, we anticipate that one-quarter of accounts will be open banking active by early 2026.
This is remarkable growth in such a short space of time and demonstrates, not only the wide-ranging benefits of open banking to consumers and businesses, but also the potential it has to deliver economic growth through the flourishing fintech and open banking ecosystems.
Our previous reports showed that the UK’s small businesses were leading the way on adoption, enabled in large part by open banking-enabled cloud accounting software which has delivered transformative efficiencies for many firms.
However, consumer adoption is catching up fast, and for the first time since its launch in 2018, adoption rates are similar. We expect consumer adoption to overtake that of business in the next few months.
Our report also reveals that open banking payments are growing at around 70% year-on-year, and that variable recurring payments (VRPs) now account for 13% of this figure, reaching a record high of 3.7m in March 2025. The variety of payments is expanding too. Alongside the traditional surge in January 2025 driven by HMRC tax deadlines, we are seeing significant increases in sectors such as travel and e-commerce, as well as open banking being used to pay credit card bills, and fund savings accounts. The development of commercial variable recurring payments (cVRPs) could accelerate this growth further. This demonstrates the “significant untapped potential” offered by open banking payments, set out in the Government’s National Payments Vision, and the role open banking can play in offering competition and innovation in the payments landscape.
The data sharing market continues to evolve too and we expect the expansion of open banking into open finance, set out in the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) Roadmap, to drive the delivery of innovative and personalised savings, lending and insurance products.
And despite some contraction, the ecosystem remains vibrant. There is also a wide range of organisations, beyond regulated TPPs, which use open banking data and payments to produce tailored solutions for consumers and small businesses.
In this pivotal year for open banking, our latest Impact Report provides invaluable insights into its continued ability to enable a thriving sector of innovative technology companies and an ecosystem which is worth an estimated £4bn to the UK economy1.
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