Press Releases

Open Banking releases system performance report

23 October 2018
press release

The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) has published the first in a new series of monthly updates on how the UK’s Open Banking system is performing at a technical level.

This report tracks the performance of the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of all Account Providers.  In this first report, data is only shown from the nine banks and building societies*6 that were required by the Competition & Markets Authority to implement Open Banking (the ‘CMA9’). Several other account providers who are already operating Open Banking APIs will be included in future versions of the report.

Imran Gulamhuseinwala OBE, Trustee of the OBIE, said: “Open Banking is becoming critical to driving innovation and competition in financial services which will ultimately benefit consumers and businesses. It is vital, for both customers and those creating new services, that the performance of the system is effectively monitored and that the results are made public.

“Publishing this data now is particularly important as the current Open Banking platform develops and improves over the course of 2019 in terms of customer experience and functionality. Being able to see exactly how the system is working encourages development, investment, genuine innovation and, ultimately, further adoption.”

The initial report shows that average API availability in August 2018 was over 98.11% with a total of 4.2m API calls (up from 3m in July).

View the full API performance report


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.