The Open Finance Roadmap – How to Unlock an Extra £30.5bn GDP Per Year

Innovate Finance & KPMG have published their Green Paper, outlining how industry and policymakers can build on current data sharing in open banking to enable wider data sharing across financial services products including savings, mortgages and insurance.

Open banking in the UK has been a driving force for innovation. New legislation will shortly give Ministers the powers to extend this to other areas of financial services as well as other sectors like energy and retail. This can provide the basis for open finance across all financial services including savings, mortgages and assets, credit, insurance, and investment. This has the power to unlock huge economic and social benefits, enabling consumers and businesses to easily view and manage their entire balance sheet and make finance work better for them.

To realise the benefits, we have to answer the question: how do we get there? How do we extend consent-based, data-driven services across datasets currently held in different financial service sectors to unlock new use cases and innovative services and products. The UK needs a roadmap for open finance, setting out the journey to data sharing in and across all financial services. The UK Government has said it will shortly publish a roadmap for smart data in a variety of economic sectors; today’s report sets out the next level of details of what this should look like in financial services.

Janine Hirt, CEO at Innovate Finance, said: “The UK has been a pioneer in Open Banking, and now has the opportunity to be the pioneer of smart data. To realise these benefits however, we must still answer the question: how do we get there? How do we extend consent-based, data-driven services across datasets currently held in different financial service sectors to unlock new use cases and innovative services and products? Innovate Finance is delighted to publish The Open Finance Roadmap with KPMG, setting out a roadmap to take forward the UK’s open finance economy. To unlock productivity, innovation and consumer outcomes, we need a clear direction for open finance, setting out the journey to data sharing in and across all financial services.”

Ellie Hewitt, Payments Director at KPMG UK, said: “Open Finance represents a huge area of opportunity for the UK. In order to get the most potential out of the technology, it’s important the industry agrees on the direction of travel and key principles for open finance in the UK. This paper aims to contribute to that discussion and sets out a framework for how we can realise the full extent of its potential.”

The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) recently published a report that called for a task force to develop a roadmap for open finance; today’s report provides the framework for that. This report summarises where we are starting the journey, and what has already been achieved or is underway. This paper:

Identifies a set of scenarios or route options for the implementation of Open Finance in the UK.
Identifies the common principles and infrastructures needed for any journey option.
Provides a framework for deciding on the UK’s route to open finance – identifying the trade-offs involved in different approaches and how data sets and use cases can be prioritised.

This provides a framework and provocation for conversation and debate, to help develop thinking on what the right roadmap (or roadmaps) should be for open finance in the UK. We want a big conversation across the ecosystem: with users and consumers; all financial services and institutions; FinTechs; BigTech; regulators; policymakers and government.

Innovate Finance and KPMG will be organising further discussions and we hope you will use this as a tool for your own discussions. Let us know what you think, what is your preferred route to open finance?