November 26, 2020

LFP168 – A Superb Guide To “Open FS” Progress Around the World w/Keith Grose Head Plaid UK

41 minutes

Open Banking started a far greater wave, The ability for people to share ever-more of their financial data – not just current account but *everything* from mortgages to investments to pensions data promises to revolutionise the world of FS and people’s financial lives. In this excellent conversation Keith gives us a tour d’horizon and a tour de force covering Case Studies of the progress of Open Finance in the UK, Europe, US, Canada, Australia and China. All of these countries have taken very differing routes starting from very different places but are all marching in the same direction.

Open Banking itself in the UK started with a Payments Directive and is thus only aimed at current accounts so far from “open banking” is not even “open banking assets” (only payment accounts are included so eg no data on savings accounts) let alone “open banking liabilities”.

Plaid are currently in the process of being acquired by Visa for $5.7bn which shows you their importance, is the largest Open Banking provider in the US and “the only transatlantic Open Banking provider” connecting Fintechs with all these diverse sources of customer’s financial data from their providers.

Topics discussed on the show include:

Working in Ethiopia and diving in coral reefs

Keith’s career journey from maths via Google into payments and Plaid

Plaid’s story including its major pivot which led to its phenomenal success

Plaid support 3,000 applications and 80% of the largest Fintechs

the tech starts to recede into the background and simply enable ever-greater use-case functionality

the basic philosophy of “open”

every country in the world has been doing it differently

the strengths of the UK’s approach “miles ahead of the rest of Europe in implementation”

this as a (rare) example of great regulation that creates business opportunities not simply bureaucracy

the varying approaches around Europe

has taken much longer in Europe and several differing “standards” have emerged

different European markets have got further or not so far down the process

US – market-based approach – only just started talking about legislation

consequences is very painful to connect 12,000 banks as all do something slightly different with no standard – vice versa the API that “sorts” all this is of amazing value

Canada similar to US

Australia has leaped from Open Banking right to Open Finance – how they achieved this

“every consumer has a right to their financial data” – how this is rolling out across types of financial data

similar in Singapore

draining moats, widening gates and prising open oyster shells

differing motivations from banks and the karma thereof

China‘s approach – skipped straight to the mobile finance world – Alipay et al

the practicalities of an API that connects one to different banks in different countries yet with differing availabilities of data – eg open pension data is not yet widespread

some implications on eg even renting properties

the importance to peoples life of having one’s finances under control

the principle behind openness is going to proliferate – it’s your data not the banks data

“this is a global movement that is going to continue for a decade to come”

thinking in the UK on how to go to the next level

leaving EU and “smart divergence” from PSD2-driven Open Banking

payments and open-payments

And much much more

Share and enjoy!

...more

View all episodes

By Tony Clark

4.6

88 ratings