Regulatory and technological developments are driving the introduction of open banking, where consumers will have the power to grant third parties the right to access their account and transaction data. Banks that embrace the concept will be able to become one-stop shops for the best products on the market, crowdsource the development of new services, and generate revenue by selling access to their data and capabilities.

The single biggest factor that will determine the long-term success or failure of open banking is consumer adoption. Open banking has got off to a slow start, with low levels of public awareness and the failure of banks to meet the January deadline for API implementation limiting adoption to date.

Banks can employ a number of different strategies to exploit the opportunities afforded by open banking. Using the bank as a marketplace strategy, banks will transform themselves into portals, using their open APIs to allow third-party services to be accessed from within their own platforms.

Open banking widens out the lending value chain to encompass third party providers. These comprise both full-service lenders and specialists that deal with specific aspects of the lending process. They will use one of two key distribution strategies: either using a bank’s marketplace for third-party products or direct-to-consumer distribution.