21 March 2023

Commissioner McGuinness at event in European Parliament “From Open Banking to Open Finance: what does the future hold?”

this is about the possibility but also the concerns, the issue around trust and confidence in the system.

Just to let you know that the Commission will adopt our proposal on Open Finance before the summer.

And essentially, this is all about data, information.

Because we know that data can give us great insights into so many things – including how we all behave and how companies are developing.

It means that there is a lot of potential for using this type of information in finance.

And we also know that advances in technology make it easier to both access data and share information.

And then to the point that Frances raised. People are concerned, rightly, about who has access to their personal data, and what that information is being used for.

I think we're starting to grasp the possibilities of data in financial services with Open Banking.

And now we're looking towards this future of Open Finance – really designed to take full advantage of data.

So three points I want to address today:

• What Open Banking is, and indeed why it hasn't yet reached its full potential,
• How Open Finance will benefit consumers and businesses, and how we want to realise it,
• And how our ambitions for Open Finance will work with some of our other policy priorities.

So we have Open Banking today.

That's when our payment account data is shared with another provider, with our consent.

The purpose of sharing our financial information is to give us access to new and different services based on the information that we share.

So an example would be, you can get an overview of all your different bank accounts, across different providers, in one single app.

And that can make it easier to manage money and keep track of spending.

Although there's a lady called Kate who tells me every so often what I'm spending on, and sometimes I wish she would stop! But it's useful to see it just the same.

So there are practical examples that we all known, for our own situations.

Another example is a service to help you manage subscriptions – so letting you see everything you are subscribed to, and then to change or cancel them more easily. And I think that is quite an interesting area, because often you forget, so we're often paying for something we're not continuing to use.

So essentially Open Banking can be very useful – to consumers, but also to companies that want to offer different kinds of financial services....

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