Australia should learn from UK’s Open Banking Implementation Entity, NatWest and NAB agree

A joint whitepaper from two of the UK and Australia’s largest banks, NatWest and National Australia Bank (NAB), has called on both countries to learn from each other’s open banking implementations.

Australia should “mirror” aspects of the UK’s Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) as the most effective way of bringing industry and regulators on the same page, the whitepaper argues.

“We also have lessons to learn here in the UK from Australia’s approach to the Consumer Data Right—especially in terms of the breadth of data access being implemented there,” writes Claire Melling, head of NatWest’s bank of APIs and one of the report’s authors.

The UK should take a “forward leaning approach” in rolling out a wider data-sharing regime as Australia has done with its broad Consumer Data Right legislation which granted all Australians the right to share their data between service providers, be that in finance, energy or telecoms.

“Consumers are now looking for more integration and connection between the main experiences they have every day, and that means evolving from 'Open Banking' to 'Open Data',” write Brad Carr, NAB’s executive of digital and data governance, and another of the report’s authors.

While the UK recently hit 7 million users of open banking, its expansion and development into open finance or smart data has been relatively slow.

The final report of the UK’s Strategic Working Group on the future direction of open banking found “limited agreement” in what that direction should look like, AltFi exclusively revealed.

We’re now waiting on the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC), co-chaired by the Financial Conduct Authority, Payment Systems Regulator, Competition and Markets Authority, and HM Treasury, to announce their agreed roadmap for what will come next.

NatWest and NAB’s full report can be found here.