Thought Leadership

Unlock your savings potential with open banking this UK Savings Week

21 September 2023
Thought leadership

London, UK, 21 September 2023: Open banking technologies – such as variable recurring payments for sweeping (VRPs) – are key to maximising the unrealised potential of savings this UK Savings Week, said Open Banking Limited CEO Henk Van Hulle. In a climate of cost-of-living pressures where households are feeling the squeeze, the need for smarter saving has never been greater. VRPs for sweeping personalise saving for consumers and businesses alike, finding ways to cut costs and manage finances more effectively.

VRPs are revolutionising the way we save. By allowing businesses and consumers to take control of their savings, VRPs allow us to save smarter and harder.

OBL CEO Henk Van Hulle.

As households grapple with how and where to save in the face of cost-of-living challenges, the benefits to consumers are clear. Open banking apps can tell you if you’re spending too quickly, and where you have spare cash to save. By ‘sweeping’ surplus funds from current accounts to interest-generating savings accounts, or by rounding up small amounts of change from shopping bills to add to a savings account, VRPs can unlock smarter savings for thousands of Brits.

As Savings Week comes to a close, the arrival of VRPs for sweeping can also be a game-changer for businesses. By setting up an instruction to monitor their business current account, every time the balance goes over a certain amount, that money could be swept into a business savings account maximising the potential of critical revenue. Against a backdrop of interest rates having risen steadily since December 2021, this could deliver a welcome boost to business finances, with minimum effort, as well as help firms to pay their taxes by setting money aside at the point of invoice collection.

Van Hulle added: “The ground breaking Digital Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, will capitalise on the foundational work of open banking to fully unlock a smart data revolution. By opening up competition across a number of key economic sectors, smart data will create benefits to consumers beyond smart savings to the likes of energy, telecoms and more.

“As we look to a future of open finance and smart data, we encourage non-mandated players to continue to take up the opportunities provided by open banking in order to continue providing the best services for their customers.”

For more information, or to organise an interview, please contact Samantha Boyle at Atticus Partners on sboyle@atticuscomms.com

Notes to editors:

1. Open Banking Ltd (OBL) was set up by the CMA9 in September 2016 as required under the Competition & Markets Authority’s (CMA) Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017 to fulfil one of the remedies mandated by the CMA following a market 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. OBL’s role is to:

• Enforce the obligations on the CMA9 under the CMA Order.

• Design the specifications for the application programme interfaces (APIs) that banks and building societies use to securely provide open banking.

• Support regulated third party providers and banks and building societies to use OBL’s Open Banking Standards.

• Create security and messaging standards.

• Manage the OBL’s Open Banking Directory which allows regulated participants like banks, building societies and third-party providers to enrol in open banking.

• Produce guidelines for participants in the open banking ecosystem.

• Set out the process for managing disputes and complaints.

For more information, or to organise an interview, please contact Samantha Boyle at Atticus Partners on sboyle@atticuscomms.com

OBL spokespeople are available on request.