FOREWORD BY THE TRUSTEE

EMPOWERING CONSUMERS TO MAKE MORE OF THEIR MONEY

Open banking is a secure way for customers to take control of their financial data and share it with organisations other than their banks. For consumers, it has the power to revolutionise the way we move, manage and make more of our money. For businesses, it has the power to make it easier and cheaper to manage cash flow and receive payments. Open banking is the result of the retail banking industry’s response to the UK Government’s request for fairer, more transparent banking and financial services, and follows the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into retail banking.

“The technology has now moved beyond the design and build phase, the ecosystem has grown strongly, and open banking is now a service that increasingly benefits millions of people in their daily lives.”

We have come a long way since the CMA order that created the OBIE and launched open banking for UK consumers and small businesses. The technology has now moved beyond the design and build phase, the ecosystem has grown strongly, and open banking is now a service that increasingly benefits millions of people in their daily lives. Notwithstanding these apparent successes, we are fully committed to investigating objective assessments of open banking versus its policy expectations and to communicating these findings transparently to all participants in the ecosystem.

To this effect, as Trustee of the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) I instructed OBIE to develop a Consumer Evaluation Framework (CEF) to properly assess the impact of open banking on retail consumers and SMEs. The framework is intended to provide the basis for measuring the delivery of key consumer outcomes envisaged by the CMA Order and was developed by the Personal Finance Research Centre at the University of Bristol. After all, the bottom line is to enable users to have control over their financial data and engender greater financial wellness.

The Consumer Evaluation Framework has been rigorously designed to build an analysis that tracks the impact of open banking for years to come. As a significant repository of source information, it is the OBIE's responsibility to assure that there is a systematic structure that allows for the ongoing evaluation and measurement of the growth, impact, and longevity of open banking in the UK market.

This report is the first output of this work. It examines the availability, adoption and customer experience of open banking services since implementation. It is our goal to expand and revisit the CEF on an ongoing basis, collecting new data and undertaking additional research that strengthens the robust measurement of outcomes for individuals and SMEs. The next report will look to better understand whether consumers are having a positive experience of open banking enabled products and services, and that those services are meeting their needs, providing value and changing the way in which they manage their finances.

As OBIE comes to the end of the implementation phase, we look forward to working with the CMA to promote the continued development, evaluation, and success of open banking.