4most’s COO Mark Somers comments on the potential impact of Open Banking

Open Banking will transform UK banking.  For consumers, the whole experience will be more convenient, with better digital banking capability, more targeted and appropriate products and potentially better deals.  However, it’s also likely to result in the end of free banking and closer scrutiny of personal spending habits.  Greater automation is likely to result in higher levels of fraud, but customers will be covered.  Overall there’s no reason why Open Banking should be any less secure than online banking.”

From a bank perspective, the greatest opportunities lie with the challenger and specialist banks, who can use the data to better understand customers and as a result target them with better offers and services than currently being offered.  Although there are some opportunities for the high street banks to know their customers better, they are going to have to fight harder to retain deposits.  The Global Financial Crisis illustrated just how sticky retail accounts have traditionally been, with Northern Rock suffering as it didn’t have enough retail accounts to match its lending. But by making it easier for customers to see the benefits and switch accounts, it’s likely retail deposits will become far less sticky going forward.

So Open Banking will allow more responsible lending and could also transform debt collection and consumer debt management.  It is also likely to result in more flighty retail deposits as consumers automatically switch money to take advantage of rates and tighter risk margins as the playing field is levelled.