National Bank of Georgia okays Open Banking rules

By Gloria Methri

The National Bank of Georgia has approved the Regulation on Inclusion in Open Banking in the country. The regulation describes the enrolment procedure and ensures the correctness, reliability, and security of the services of the entities enrolled.

Non-banking institutions, if they meet the requirements stipulated by the regulation, can engage in Open Banking as providers of both access to account information and payment initiation services. Any entity regulated by the National Bank of Georgia may be included in Open Banking.

Notably, on May 1, 2023, the National Bank of Georgia approved the Regulation on Registration and Regulation of Payment Service Providers. The Regulation allows any entity, including those previously unregulated by NBG, to register as service providers for new business activities, access to account information, and payment initiation.

NBG partners with IFC

In other news, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in partnership with the National Bank of Georgia has announced a technical sandbox, which is expected to develop Open Banking and enhance its benefits for consumers.

Technical sandbox provides an opportunity to test services using Application Programming Interfaces (API), used to create innovative financial products in a real test environment.

The sandbox will be launched on the Open Banking platform of the TESOBE international firm, which provides access to the catalog of 400 banking APIs and localized test data, along with the opportunity to communicate with over 11,000 FinTech developers.

The National Bank of Georgia and the IFC will give participants a chance to study the capabilities of two pre-selected Open Banking APIs in a test environment and use them to create innovative financial products for consumers. The NBG together with the IFC will decide on APIs selected for the technical sandbox within three weeks after the launch of the project.

Based on the results of the testing, if the new services are deemed interesting and of significant benefit to the consumers, they will be added to the standard of Open Banking of Georgia and will become available in the real environment for those involved in Open Banking.