Deposit marketplace Raisin moved into the UK market by acquiring Manchester-based fintech PBF Solutions; Tamaz Georgadze, Raisin’s CEO and founder, tells AltFi “The acquisition of PBF gives us the opportunity to significantly broaden our offer to UK savers and deposit takers." Source.
Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair writes in the FT that in light of the recent hack to Equifax should regulators be providing more entry points to customer data; she goes on to explain past bank hacks are typically done using a third party who has gained access to a customer’s data; other key points include can these service providers cover potential losses and are regulators forcing service providers into the most secure process. Source.
Open banking platform Deposit Solutions raised $20mn from existing shareholders e.ventures and Greycroft; they will use the funds to continue building the platform out and expand to more markets around the globe; “This investment round is a strong vote of confidence from our shareholders and allows us to further focus on our core mission, establishing Open Banking as the new industry standard for the deposit market,” Deposit Solutions founder and CEO Dr. Tim Sievers said to Bankless Times. Source.
According to Christopher Ward, head of product management for PNC’s treasury management division, “We’re ready, we’re in process of implementing APIs with customers. I would proffer most customers are not ready for it.”; Bank of America also stated they are ready for open banking; however many banks aren’t as prepared and being ‘ready’ for open banking is up to interpretation; the article from Tearsheet shares other perspectives on open banking and how some banks might be missing the point of open banking. Source
With open banking set to go live in Europe next month US banks will be keeping a close eye on how the process works; US banks have started to share data with fintechs through different partnerships for different reasons; the time is coming where the industry will have to look at open banking as a regulatory standard and some think the banks should really be the ones to set the parameters; coming up with a potential global set of standards is something that could really benefit all parties involved; “You need to globalize that at consistency so you don’t have different standards for each country in Asia, for example,” said Cynthia Murray, a managing director at Bank of America, to TearSheet. Source.
HSBC is looking to test the new app to help in preparation for the coming open banking regulations; the app will allow customers to look at all their accounts including loans from 21 different banks; Becky Moffat, head of personal banking and advice at HSBC, tells Banking Technology “Through our Beta app we want to give our customers a complete and joined-up view of their financial life.” Source.
As the date for open banking nears Banks and their digital only challengers are bracing for a new era of banking in Europe; writing an opinion piece in AltFi Lewis Hill of Instinctif Partners explains how digital only banks will need to explain their value proposition to the consumer to take advantage of the new rules; banks are still struggling with legacy technology and poor consumer ratings; the time is now for challengers to truly disrupt the incumbent players. Source.
Open banking is around the corner in the UK and recently the CFPB released guidelines on data sharing that has banks concerned about cybersecurity; Kathryn Petralia, chief operating officer of the online lender Kabbage believes banks and Fintechs should be held to the same standard regarding data; concerns over data include responsibility on data breaches, encryption and entry points for hackers; as data sharing becomes the norm both banks and fintechs will need to protect themselves at many levels. Source.
As Europe moves to open banking the US begins testing principles of data sharing between banks and fintechs. Source
Open source projects have started at Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase in the past year, there is a thought that this is the start a new wave of open source banking; Accenture found that 99 out of 100 payments executives at banks said they plan to make big open banking investments by 2020; open source projects like Linux has help the tech industry develop into what it is today; banks like CBW Bank, who is run by former Google engineer Suresh Ramamurthi, already have a marketplace where developers can build banking apps using their APIs; open source banking can also help to keep banks more secure as the big tech giants have been helped a lot by using open source applications. Source.