Open banking: Between cooperation and competition

Abstract

The emergence of financial technology companies (fintechs) has spurred expectations that they will lead to large-scale disintermediation in finance and significantly disrupt the banking industry. Regulators in several jurisdictions have supported their market entry through the adoption of open banking policies, whose purpose is to facilitate third-party access to banking data, subject to customer consent. Data access has been seen as a competitive bottleneck in the banking industry, while customers hold the ultimate ownership over their data. This paper aims to critically assess proclaimed promises of open banking by analysing existing barriers to entry and market-based collaborations between banks and fintechs as identified in the literature. Since the expected effects can vary depending on the regulatory model embraced, the paper also outlines the economic trade-offs of different regulatory solutions. Consequently, the paper may help regulators who are considering introducing or designing open banking policies.