Open Banking

Open Banking Limited marks 8 years of transforming the UK’s financial landscape

13 January 2026

This article covers:

• More than 16.5 million user connections live across the UK
• Nearly 5,000 skilled digital jobs created since Jan 2018 launch
• Open Banking payments reached almost 33 million1 in November 2025 alone

Henk Van Hulle, CEO, sets out OBL’s roadmap for the next phase of growth

London, UK – Open Banking Limited (OBL) today marks the 8th anniversary of open banking in the UK – an innovation made possible by the implementation of PSD2,- and a pivotal moment for the UK economy. This milestone comes as the FCA, in a recent letter to the Prime Minister, identified open banking as a key initiative to drive national growth and unlock new use cases, particularly SME lending. OBL is proud to celebrate eight years of progress that have transformed how millions of people and businesses manage, move and make sense of their money.

Since its launch in January 2018, open banking has evolved from a regulatory initiative into a core part of the UK’s financial infrastructure, underpinning innovation, competition and growth across payments, lending, money management and beyond. Today, more than 16.5 million user connections2 are live across the UK, supported by a growing ecosystem of 145 authorised third-party providers, delivering services used daily by consumers, small businesses and public bodies. Open banking-enabled solutions have contributed over £4 billion3 to the UK economy with account-to-account payments growing rapidly as businesses and consumers benefit from faster, secure and cost effective ways to pay.

OBL has driven this success by building and maintaining the UK’s world-leading Open Banking Standard, as well as convening banks, fintechs, and regulators to turn policy ambition into practical delivery. OBL’s work has helped ensure that open banking operates as a public good, with secure data sharing and a consistent technical framework that supports trust and adoption at scale.

More recently, OBL has driven this success by convening banks, fintechs, and regulators, and enabling industry-led initiatives such as commercial Variable Recurring Payments (cVRP) to turn policy ambition into practical delivery.

As open banking enters its next chapter, the focus is shifting from proving the model to scaling its impact. The infrastructure, standards and lessons developed through open banking provide a strong foundation for Open Finance and the UK’s broader Smart Data agenda. Secure data sharing has the potential to unlock innovation well beyond retail banking, supporting new services across areas such as pensions, investments, insurance, energy, telecoms, and housing. The real cross-sector value is already emerging; mortgages that recognise current account history; energy switching that reflects real payments behaviour; – these are verified attributes that travel with the user. OBL believes that by reusing proven approaches across sectors ‘build once, use often’, the UK can accelerate delivery, ensure interoperability , and maximise the economic and social value of smart data.

Commenting on the anniversary, Henk van Hulle, CEO of Open Banking Limited, said:

In just eight years, Open Banking Limited has helped build an ecosystem that people and businesses across the UK now use as part of everyday financial life, sometimes without even realising. The UK has created something genuinely world-leading; the priority now is to put the right long-term structures in place so that advantage is protected and can continue to grow to support as many businesses and consumers as possible to better engage with, and make the most of, their finances.”

Henk Van Hulle, OBL CEO

Notes to editors
Variable Recurring Payments (VRP) announcement: https://www.openbanking.org.uk/news/an-industry-first-the-uks-new-commercial-open-banking-scheme/

[1] November payments 32.93m Open Banking Limited
[2] November connected users 16.56m Open Banking Limited
[3] The £4bn Open Banking Ecosystem – Startup Coalition