Open Banking users reaches two million in UK, doubling in six months

By Sunniva Kolostyak

Over two million people have now taken advantage of Open Banking-enabled products in the UK, a doubling since January 2020, according to the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE).

OBIE, the body set up by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to deliver Open Banking in the UK, unveiled that the doubling in usage comes despite the disruptive effects of Covid-19. Uptake grew with around 160,000 new users per month, only plateauing in April and May before resuming growth.

The majority are using the open architecture to better understand spending, save effectively, manage income and expenditure, reduce charges for borrowing and improve their credit rating to apply for cheaper loans and mortgages, the OBIE data, provided by the CMA9, showed.

Imran Gulamhuseinwala OBE, Implementation Trustee at OBIE, commented that Open Banking-enabled products are rebalancing the market in favour of consumers and small businesses.

“Open Banking used to be the best-kept secret in financial services. With two million active monthly users and growing strongly that is clearly no longer the case. We can now see that people want to exercise their rights over their data and will do so, as long as you make it simple and secure,” he said.

Payments is another area which is expected to drive further growth as providers take advantage of increased functionality to introduce innovative payments products.

Also commenting, Bill Roberts, Heading of Open Banking at CMA, said: “When the CMA investigated retail banking, we found banks were not working hard enough for consumers, and so we required them to give people control of their own data. By doing so, we believed this would unleash a wave of innovation and stimulate rivalry.

“The fast growth in personal customers and small businesses using Open Banking during 2020 – and hitting the two million mark – is another important milestone towards that goal.”

David Beardmore, Ecosystem Development Director at OBIE added: “I’m excited to see the two million users-threshold passed so quickly. Open Banking will revolutionise the way we pay. While open banking payments are currently a small proportion of open banking usage, recent strong growth is a sure sign that people welcome more payments choice. We predict that payments will eventually form a considerable proportion of our growing user numbers.”

OBIE is governed by the CMA and funded by the CMA9, which includes Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, Barclays, Danske, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, RBS Group and Santander.