Europæiske fintechs går sammen om at gøre åben finans til en realitet

En række fintechs er gået sammen om at udvikle og fremme et åbent finansøkosystem i både Storbritannien og EU understøttet af Application Programming Interfaces (API'er).

Open Finance Association (OFA), som tæller Plaid, GoCardless og TrueLayer blandt sine medlemmer, ønsker at indlede en æra med åben finans på omtrent samme måde som EU's 2016 Payment Services-direktiv (PSD2) gjorde for åbne banker.

Som næste skridt i åben bankvirksomhed håber den almennyttige brancheforening, at åben finansiering vil give virksomheder og forbrugere "større kontrol og synlighed over deres økonomiske liv".

OFA, der opererer i Bruxelles og London, har tre hovedmål: gøre det muligt for forbrugere og virksomheder at få adgang til og bruge deres finansielle data via tredjepartsudbydere; udvikle en øjeblikkelig betalingsmetode baseret på åbne betalinger; og fremme et "velfungerende" åbent finansøkosystem.

The OFA has appointed Nilixa Devlukia as chair of the organisation. She has previously held senior roles at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the European Banking Authority.

Devlukia says industry, policy makers and regulators must come together to “make open finance a reality”.

Devlukia adds: “Through the promotion of an API-focused agenda in both payments and data, OFA aims to promote a healthy and sustainable fintech ecosystem, in which consumers and businesses all benefit from improved, innovative services.”

The need for collective efforts to make open finance a reality come as governments, regulators and industry in the UK and EU have begun to think about how such an ecosystem would work.

The European Commission has recently completed a public consultation on open finance with a legislative initiative hopefully to follow in 2023.

In the UK, open finance has been on the table since the FCA’s Call for Input in 2019 and a new ‘Smart Data’ bill introduced in July that could allow sector authorities to create a new open finance framework.

The OFA’s current members are Armalytix, Crezco, finAPI, GoCardless, Nuapay, Ordo, Plaid, Token, TrueLayer, Volt, Worldline, Worldpay and Yapily.