Open Banking American Style

Open banking or connected banking is evolving in the U.S. even without a mandate.

The promise of open banking as defined by Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) in Europe is to provide access to consumers’ data that they explicitly permit to be shared with the goal of providing better financial outcomes. The sharing of data permissioned by millions of account owners is being used for account authentication, balance checks, and gathering of transaction data. This information is used to open accounts; provide budgeting, savings and investment advice; and in some instances to facilitate payments. All of this activity is occurring without the assistance of industry-wide data standards, a specific regulatory framework, or a mandate to share data. This is poised to change with open banking, or connected banking, beginning to ramp up in the U.S. Mercator Advisory Group’s latest report, Open Banking American Style, explores current developments in connected banking in the U.S.

There is unlikely to be a mandate for open banking in the U.S., so this report has chosen the term connected banking to better describe the sharing of permissioned data. While many financial institutions see themselves only as a provider of data and therefore at a competitive disadvantage, banks and credit unions are beginning to plan how they may proactively reach out to fintechs and others in the financial services market to pull in data to their and their client’s advantage. “Connected banking has the opportunity to level the playing field between traditional financial services providers and upstarts,” comments Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit and Alternative Products Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group and author of the report.

This report has 15 pages and 1 exhibit.

Companies mentioned in this report include: Acorns, Fiserv, Plaid, Envestnet Yodlee, Finicity, FinLocker, Square, Truelayer.