INTRODUCTION

Since 2021, Open Banking Limited (OBL) has published a series of Impact Reports, charting the growth and development of open banking in the UK. This seventh report focuses on the adoption of both data sharing and payments and availability of services at a critical point in the evolution of open banking.

The report shows a healthy and growing ecosystem, with a broad range of innovative propositions in the market and record levels of adoption by both consumers and small businesses. It also shows sustained growth in open banking payments which now form a critical part of the UK’s payment market, promoting greater choice and competition in payments.

This impact is magnified by the huge range of tailored solutions this ecosystem delivers for consumers and small businesses that empower them to reduce costs, address pain points and improve their financial health. All this growth comes in advance of several critical changes that have the potential to accelerate the development of open banking.

Data sharing

The Data (Use and Access) Bill is progressing through Parliament and this will lay the foundations for a long-term regulatory framework and commercially sustainable model that will further unlock the potential of open banking, as well as open finance and smart data.

In data sharing, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has set out its clear ambition to drive digital innovation via expanding open banking into open finance, increasing the range of data available to third parties and giving the potential to build richer and more transformative propositions by potentially making data available on products such as mortgages and insurance

Payments

In payments, the industry-led development of commercial variable recurring payments (cVRP), has the potential to further accelerate the growth of open banking payments and drive competition and choice2.

What this report makes clear is that these changes will supercharge an ecosystem which is already vibrant and expanding.

1 in 5 consumers and small businesses had an active open banking data connection or made an open banking payment in March 20253.

There were roughly 31m open banking payments in March 2025, representing 1 in 13 or 8.0% of all Faster Payments.

Open banking payments have sustained a year-on-year growth of around 70%, with VRPs now accounting for 13% of the total.

There are 145 third party providers (TPPs) with a live-to-market open banking proposition, a further 406 agents and potentially thousands of firms using open banking data and payments.

The ecosystem continues to adapt and develop, with 33 live-to-market TPPs exiting the market since 2022, but being replaced by 23 new firms.

[2] See the FCA’s letter to the Chancellor here

[3] All sources are contained in the main body of the report and with further explanation of the methodology in the Appendix.

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