NatWest and NAB have published a white paper exploring the common threads that bind both Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) and the UK’s Open Banking regime. The agenda-setting white paper highlights the similarities in the policies that underpin both regimes: to increase competition, innovation, and to empower consumers with control over their data, as well as how the two countries have diverged in their journeys to implementing these frameworks, notably in relation to their respective scope in terms of ‘breadth versus depth’.

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’. One of the areas the two institutions are looking at is how Open Banking can help enable instant credit decisions. Immediate decisioning will have a transformative effect on the customer experience and allows the institutions to better support a customer’s financial well-being.

The UK and the Australian regimes are now at a critical juncture of their respective development, with the UK looking beyond banking and finance to Open Data and Australia shifting focus to grow the adoption of the regime and support greater system functionality. Open Banking in the UK Earlier in February 2023, Open Banking Limited announced that the number of consumers and SMEs actively using Open Banking-powered services in the UK has reached 7 million. It is important to mention that 1.

2 million of the 7 million are first-time users of Open Banking. From access to cost-effective credit, building a regular savings habit or making more informed financial decisions – Open Banking is delivering the means for our citizens to improve their financial well-being. In December 2022, the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), creator of the software standards connecting banks and fintechs in the UK, announced the transition into a new entity and regulatory framework in 2023.

 The future entity is expected to be overseen by the Open Banking committee and the CMA before establishing a ‘long-term regulatory framework for Open Banking’ underpinned by necessary legislation. There is an upcoming update that will be announced before April 2023. Open Banking in Australia Since its launch in July 2020, customers of the largest Australian banks have had the right to share their transaction data with accredited data recipients.

It now includes savings accounts, credit card accounts, loan accounts and mortgages, as well as transaction accounts. Open Banking applies to other Australia-based authorised deposit-taking institutions too. Therefore, Open Banking and CDR have now become critical parts of the design of Australia’s digital and data economy.

They are intended to provide a sustainable, robust, and resilient foundation for Australian consumers and businesses to engage with, and safely benefit from, the exchange of data and the increased productivity it supports. Most recently, in January 2023, AGL Energy partnered with Microsoft to launch a cloud-powered data platform that allows the energy provider to provide Consumer Data Right (CDR) services to consumers. By partnering with Microsoft and other external partners, alongside AGL’s team having experience with using Microsoft Cloud, the energy provider was able to develop a reportedly flexible, CDR-compliant, and cost-efficient platform in one year, while respecting regulatory timeframes.

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