Press Releases

The OBIE forms collaboration with OpenID Foundation

17 May 2017
press release

The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), the organisation responsible for the open API banking standard, today announces its collaboration with the OpenID Foundation’s Financial API Working Group.

Open Banking and the Open ID Foundation share the mutual objective of developing a robust set of security standards for the safe provision of financial APIs that offer the highest level of protection for all participants, in particular end users.

The two organisations will work together to create a living public specification, allowing all members of the OpenID Foundation the opportunity to offer ongoing support and assistance to ensure that the Open Banking ecosystem, both in the UK and internationally, sets a secure and solid benchmark for the future.

This collaboration demonstrates the growing global adoption of OpenID Connect as a security standard in the most dynamic and challenging online environment today; the highly regulated world of online Banking and the rapidly expanding Fintech sector.

Commenting on the collaboration, Chris Michael, Head of Technical Delivery at the OBIE, said: “This partnership will provide valuable support to Open Banking in the widest sense, not least as we move forward purposefully to our January 2018 milestone.”


For further information, please contact:

press@openbanking.org.uk

About Us

Open Banking is a new, secure way for customers to take control of their financial data and share it with organisations other than their banks. Open Banking has the power to revolutionise the way we move, manage and make more of our money. For businesses, it is about making the management of cashflow and receiving payments cheaper and easier. Open Banking will make things simpler, faster and more convenient.

Open Banking follows the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into the supply of personal current accounts (PCAs) and of banking services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Open Banking was created to enable innovation, transparency and competition in UK financial services. It is tasked with delivering the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), data structures and security architectures that will enable developers to harness technology, making it easy and safe for individuals and SMEs to share the financial information held by their banks with third parties.

Open Banking will bring substantial benefits. It gives customers and SMEs greater market choice and greater control over their money and associated data, along with better and easier access to new financial services providers in a secure environment.

Notes to Editors:

1. Open Banking Ltd was set up by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) in September 2016 to fulfil one of the remedies mandated by the CMA following an investigation into UK retail banking.

2. The CMA’s investigation into the retail banking market (whose findings were published in August 2016) concluded that older and larger banks do not compete hard enough for customers’ business and that Open Banking should deliver a new, secure option for customers to be able to compare the deal they are getting from their bank.

3. Open Banking was created to enable innovation, transparency and competition to UK financial services. It is tasked with delivering the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), data structures and security architectures that will make it easy and safe for customers to share their financial records by January 2018.

4. The data provided by Open Banking will enable developers to harness technology that allows individuals and businesses to share their financial records held by their banks with third parties.

5. Open Banking is a private body; its governance, composition and budget was determined by the CMA. It is funded by the UK’s nine largest current account providers and overseen by the CMA, the Financial Conduct Authority and Her Majesty’s Treasury.

6. The 9 mandated institutions (referred to as the CMA9) are: Barclays plc, Lloyds Banking Group plc, Santander, Danske, HSBC, RBS, Bank of Ireland, Nationwide and AIBG.

About the Open ID Foundation

  1. The OpenID Foundation is a non-profit international standardization organization of individuals and companies committed to enabling, promoting and protecting OpenID technologies.
  2. Formed in June 2007, the foundation serves as a public trust organization representing the open community of developers, vendors, and users. See https://openid.net/foundation/ and https://openid.net/wg/fapi/.