INTRODUCTION AND APPROACH

We are committed to periodically publishing a report examining progress towards meeting the policy objectives of open banking, and the extent to which it is delivering the intended outcomes for the UK’s consumers and small businesses.

This is the fourth Open Banking Impact Report. These reports are published in a six-monthly cycle, but on this occasion, we have adjusted the reporting cycle so that this and future reports are based on data up to the year end.

Open banking is a complex policy initiative with a range of impacts and external factors influencing its success. For that reason, we developed a framework for measuring consumer outcomes from open banking in 2020. This framework and its components are summarised in Appendix 5 and continue to underpin our approach to this evaluation.

It is complex to measure most of the components and the data presented is directional in some places. We have had to rely on several underlying assumptions, which are transparently stated in the report.

The focus of the initial Open Banking Impact Reports was on:

Outputs

the availability of open banking-enabled propositions.

Intermediate outcomes

levels of customer adoption and other metrics related to adoption.

Intermediate outcomes

an indicative view on the value of such services to end-users.

This fourth report focuses exclusively on availability and adoption. Previous Impact Reports included findings from bespoke research exercises evaluating the impacts that certain open banking-enabled services were delivering to consumers and SMEs.

Figure 1: Evolution of analytical components

2Based on feedback from the Expert Group we convened to feed back on the Framework, it was agreed that awareness was complex to track and not necessarily helpful given that many users of open banking may not be aware that the service they have signed up to uses open banking. We will review whether to include in future reports.