What the fintechs think about open banking’s progress? Part 1 TrueLayer

I blogged last week about what is in store for Open Banking in 2019, according to a couple of analysts.

After Open Banking celebrated its first birthday last week I though it apt to get some views from different parts of the industry about what has been its impact so far and what they expect this year.

The analysts were united in the view that Open Banking will bring huge changes to the finance sector but this will not happen overnight, in fact it didn’t happen in the whole of last year and won’t happen this year. It will be gradual.

I am now getting the views of fintechs about what they expect. This might shed more light on why it will be an evolution rather than a revolution in the banking industry. I will post the views of these fintechs in individual blog posts.

I am kicking off with comments from TrueLayer. This is a good place to start as its business model is the result of open banking.    The fintech, which I recently interviewed, is an application programming interface (API) supplier to fintechs.

It enables software developers at fintechs to create services that use information from banks. As a result Open Banking is core to its business model

TrueLayer co-founder & CEO   Francesco Simoneschi said the launch of Open Banking in January last year will be seen as one of the most profound landmarks in a generation for the financial industry.

“It has the capacity to revolutionise how businesses and consumers experience financial services and is likely to completely disrupt the credit industry,” he said.

“We’re also very excited about the good it will do regarding financial inclusion – many more people are going to get access to credit and banking services. This will really help social mobility. “

He said the continued ascent of challenger banks last year was notable and the open banking regulation could further diminish the dominance of the big banks. “Monzo and Starling Bank both hit solid customers numbers and expanded their offering. It is now only a matter of time before the monopoly of the UK’s big five banks is broken.”