What’s holding up open banking?

• Published date: 03 July 2023
• Author: Diana Clement
• Publication title: Whanganui Chronicle

Open banking is a relatively simple concept

The idea is the financial data that banks hold should belong to the customer, not the bank.

The customer should have the right to choose to give permission to third-party services to access their data.

That can make switching banks easier, or applying for mortgages and loans. Instead of sending over three months of bank statements to the new bank or lender, we simply give the other lender permission to access our data via a secure system.

Personally, I like the idea that open banking would allow us to give permission for third-party budgeting apps to access a person’s banking transactions automatically.

That makes budgeting easier, which in turn helps people manage their money better.

In the UK, which has had open banking for years, third-party companies offer services that use artificial intelligence to analyse a person’s bank transactions in order to provide...