Thought Leadership

The Future is Open: Navigating the Next Phase of UK Open Banking 

17 March 2025

With the UK’s financial landscape undergoing a transformation, clear opportunities are being created for better outcomes for citizens and businesses, as well as society more broadly. Perhaps none of these are as exciting as those presented by open banking – and smart data more generally. While much exciting progress has been made in open banking’s seven-year history, 2025 potentially heralds the biggest leap yet.  

Every month the number of open banking users and transactions continues to grow, as more customers and businesses recognise the opportunities, products and services it can provide. The open banking ecosystem is worth £4.1bn to the UK economy and has created over 4,800 jobs. The ecosystem we have collectively created is supporting growth, innovation and – looking ahead – is providing the foundations of a true smart data economy, which can deliver economic benefits across other key sectors such as property, retail, telecoms and utilities.    

This report from global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal, The Future is Open: Navigating the Next Phase of UK Open Banking, charts open banking’s journey so far and asks industry experts what steps are necessary to ensure its future success.

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The new report from global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal, The Future is Open: Navigating the Next Phase of UK Open Banking, charts open banking’s journey so far and asks industry experts what steps are necessary to ensure its future success.

The report, featuring certain insights from OBL, delves into the current regulatory and legislative frameworks that underpin these developments and explores the future possibilities that lie ahead. These include exciting near-term developments such as the first ‘live’ test case for premium APIs in the UK, with commercial variable recurring payments (cVRPs).

And potentially not much further in the distance is the much-needed diversification of the range of ‘open’ financial data – allowing individuals and businesses to enhance their experience of savings, pensions and insurance products and services via open finance. The Government is also progressing thinking on how to take these lessons even wider, into other sectors of the economy through their smart data agenda.

Underpinning these opportunities is the transition of open banking’s regulatory basis to a long-term framework that will see the transition of a competition remedy to one firmly focused on growth and innovation – as well as opening up other sectors. Enabling this is the Data (Use and Access) Bill – currently advancing through Parliament. This – alongside the regulatory instruments that will follow – will play a critical role in providing the foundations upon which the next phase of open banking will be built.  

Alongside this has been welcome policy direction emphasising the importance of payments – and in particular open banking – to growth. The Government recently published the National Payments Vision (NPV)  that sets out its vision for open banking payments and open finance, citing open banking as having “significant untapped potential”. 

In addition to the NPV, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has undertaken several open banking and open finance initiatives through its Innovation Hubs and has launched ‘Project Aperta’ to connect open finance infrastructures across borders.

This aims to demonstrate how seamless cross-border data portability can enhance such activities as trade finance. Opportunities are no longer limited to national jurisdictions, with great opportunities to learn from other markets being presented. The growing potential for collaboration and cooperation between markets paves the way for open banking leaders to expand their horizons, be it domestically or internationally.

“Open banking is in its strongest position yet: data and payments continue to make ground, and consumers and businesses are seeing its benefits in the management of their household and business finances and increased access to affordable lending.

We are committed to playing a constructive role in delivering this agenda, and will continue to work with Government, regulators and the wider ecosystem to make it a reality.”

Marion King, OBL Trustee

Download the report

Read expert insights