CMA

The CMA’s decision on the OBIE Trustee’s proposals for the final stages of open banking implementation

07 April 2020
CMA

On 7th April the CMA issued its response to the proposed Revised Roadmap for Open Banking. In this response, it sets out those areas of the proposal that are approved and those that require minor amendments.

Commenting on the CMA response to the proposed Revised Roadmap, Trustee of the OBIE, Imran Gulamhuseinwala OBE said:

“Today the CMA published an updated Roadmap that will now enable us to complete the implementation of Open Banking.

I am pleased the CMA has substantially approved all the proposals that are intended to improve performance, fill in the gaps in payment functionality and enable greater user adoption. The CMA requires some amendments and further detail on timing to account for the impact of Covid-19.

The CMA shares my view that, whilst we have made good progress, having passed the one million user mark in January, more needs to be done to ensure that we can look back on a successful implementation of Open Banking in the UK and ensure more consumers and businesses are able to use Open Banking to manage their finances.”

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: AIG Group UK, trading as First Trust Bank in Northern Ireland, Bank of Ireland (UK), Barclays Bank plc, HSBC Group, Lloyds Banking Group plc, Nationwide Building Society, Northern Bank Limited, trading as DankseBank, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (in Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and Santander.