Advisory groups will assist the Implementation Trustee in leading the industry’s delivery of the CMA Open Banking API standard Following October’s appointment of Andrew Pinder as the Implementation Trustee tasked with leading the project to deliver a new, secure option for customers to best compare the deal they are getting from their banking, convenors for five newly-formed advisory groups have now been appointed. These separate groups collectively represent the views of: challenger banks fintechs third party providers payment service providers (PSPs) and parties with an interest ensuring consistency with the requirements of the upcoming, revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Gavin Littlejohn, Chairman of a fintech trade association and Chief Executive of Money Dashboard will be convening the fintech advisory group. Ian Major, Director at Runpath, a price comparison website, will convene the third party providers; Thaer Sabri, Chief Executive of Electronic Money Association will be responsible for the PSPs; and James Whittle, will serve as the PSD2 convenor. The challenger banks convenor is still to be finalised and will be named shortly. These five convenors will sit on the Implementation Entity Steering Group representing the views of their advisory groups, alongside Financial Services Consumer Panelists, Faith Reynolds and Mark Chidley. Faith and Mark are charged with representing consumers and SMEs (small and medium enterprises), respectively. The advisory groups, which will meet on at least a monthly basis, are intended to provide a forum for debate and discussion to inform both the development and implementation of the standards. Andrew Pinder, Implementation Trustee, said: “We are very fortunate to be working with these individuals, who are esteemed experts in their field, and who will be able to help ensure that the fullest debate is held amongst their diverse and representative groups. “Customer needs are at the heart of our work, and we know that Open Banking has the potential to transform the way in which we bank as it will enable providers of all shapes and sizes to create dramatically improved products that are more competitive, intuitive, personalised, convenient and integrated. My role, and that of the advisory groups, is to lead the industry into delivering the best possible standard, which takes on board all the needs and requirements of users, bringing together the traditional industry players with the market disrupters. If we achieve our goal, we could truly revolutionise banking to the ultimate benefit of customers.” The Implementation Entity is seeking expertise and insight from stakeholders through these advisory groups. Anyone interested in participating in these groups should contact enquiries@openbanking.org.uk For further information please contact: press@openbanking.org.uk. Notes to Editors 1) An API (Application Programming Interface) is a way for electronic information held in one place to be shared in a controlled and highly secure way: it enables third parties that meet security and service standards to access data and use it to offer services and products. In the retail banking market, a new API standard could transform competition by giving customers more control over their finances, making it easier to access and compare product and service information from different providers. 2) The CMA has required that an implementation entity be set up and funded by the nine banks in the UK with the largest market share (RBS Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, HSBC Group, Nationwide, Santander, Danske, Bank of Ireland and AIB Group). They have been required by the CMA to deliver the first stage of the project by the end of March 2017, covering publicly available data such as branch opening hours and ATM locations, and information relating to prices, charges and eligibility criteria for loans and personal and business current accounts. Other interested providers will be able to participate in the service and offer it under the same terms as the nine named banks. The second deliverable is the sharing, with customer consent, of customers’ transactional data by January 2018. 3) View the CMA’s Retail Banking Market Investigation: Final Report 4) A new website for the implementation entity will be launched soon. For more information on the Open Banking Standard, visit here About the Implementation Entity The Implementation Entity is the delivery body for an open banking service in the UK. An open banking service, made up of API standards and frameworks, has the potential to dramatically improve competition and innovation in UK banking – benefiting individuals and businesses. The governance, composition and budget of the Implementation Entity has been agreed by the Competition and Markets Authority, to deliver one of the remedies set out in their retail banking investigation. It is led by an independent Implementation Trustee, with decisions taken by the Implementation Entity Steering Group (IESG), which they chair. In support of wide stakeholder engagement and input, there will be an open sharing of outputs during the development of the standards via the implementation entity advisory group and website.