Open Banking Implementation Entity praises current market of 1m Open Banking customers

The Trustee of the Open Banking Implementation Entity Imran Gulamhuseinwala today heralded the news that one million Brits have used Open Banking since its 2018 launch.

“One million is a significant milestone, but by no means is it the end,” said Gulamhuseinwala, a regular keynote speaker for Open Banking Expo.

These numbers are provided by the CMA9 (the nine largest banks in the UK) and so they don’t include the likes of Starling Bank and Monzo who were early adopters of the technology. As such, this is a relatively conservative figure of which doesn’t include the digital banking trailblazers.

At the last count the number of platforms providing Open Banking services hit just over 200 and this number is expected to continue rising in 2020.

“Open Banking is about giving customers access to their data to rebalance the market in their favour. By creating greater competition, we are seeing innovation from new entrants and incumbents, which is leading to greater convenience and crucially greater engagement,” added Gulamhuseinwala.

Whilst Gulamhuseinwala believes there is still a long way to go in the widespread adoption of Open Banking, there are true success stories in the SME lending and mortgages markets for example and he predicts 2020 will be even more important for consumer adoption as the year progresses.

“We believe 2020 will be the year when adoption of Open Banking financial services really takes off.”