Mr. Open Banking

Data fuels our digital lives, helping us make decisions, build relationships, and stay organized. To achieve these goals, we willingly share our personal data with various service providers, who give us search engines, social networks and e-commerce. But somewhere in the bargain, those providers encroached far beyond what the typical user understood. Our personal information, what makes us us, wasn’t just given, it was taken, in a way that makes it very hard to get back. To unpack this asymmetry and discuss a way forward, Eyal sits down with Liz Brandt, Co-Founder and CEO of Ctrl-Shift, a strategy and business innovation consultancy specializing in helping businesses realize the strategic value of trusted personal data. Anticipating that the use of personal data would become critical, Liz started the consulting firm Ctrl-Shift over 13 years ago, dedicating her career to identifying the opportunities and solving the challenges presented by the emergent personal information economy.

Specifically they discuss: 

• Why privacy remains important
• Understanding the information sharing relationship
• The evolution of Ctrl-Shift 
• Striking a balance between privacy and growth
• The role of standardization and legislation

For most people, wallets are a staple accessory of their everyday lives. Yet today, the analog wallet is disappearing, to be replaced, like so many other things, by its digital twin. Digital wallets are now a reality and, like their physical predecessors, they will become an intrinsic part of our lives, so making sure they are built the right way is critical. To discuss the future of digital wallets, Eyal turns to Daniel Goldscheider, Founder of the OpenWallet Foundation, an organization dedicated to enabling a trusted digital future through interoperability for a wide range of use cases that leverage the software construct known as a digital wallet. Before founding the OpenWallet Foundation, Daniel was CEO of yes.com, a digital banking platform, and co-founded Mediaguide with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers alongside Aureus Private Equity. He has served on the boards of the Global Footprint Network and Identity Trust Management, demonstrating his deep history building systems that aim to enshrine data rights.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The benefits of digital wallets
• What is driving the proliferation of digital wallets
• Digital wallets versus authenticator apps
• The technology behind digital wallets
• The relationship between digital wallets and open banking

Open banking is often cast as an antidote to the dominance of big banks. Given that its origins stem from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, this perspective is not terribly surprising. But is this characterisation a fair one? Does open banking have to be a threat to big banks, or can it be turned into an opportunity? To answer these questions and more, we turn to Paul LaRusso. Paul is a business leader with over 20 years of experience in mobile financial services and technology. Paul is the CEO of Akoya, a bank-sanctioned data access network that is leading the way in the US open finance sector. Prior to joining Akoya, Paul served as the Head of Open Banking and Connected Banking at JP Morgan Chase, where he held technology leadership positions for almost 15 years. Today as head of Akoya, Paul aims to transform the way people share their data, making it more secure, private, reliable, and transparent. In this episode, Eyal and Paul unpack the history of open banking and the evolution in the market-driven approach that Paul has had the benefit of seeing up close.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The history of open banking
• The benefits of CFPB regulations
• What the US can learn from the UK
• What the big banks need to know
• Why open banking is a two-way street

It’s no secret that global banking is experiencing some macroeconomic headwinds. Bank failures and consolidations continue to spread, albeit slowly. The question then becomes: How do these negative trends influence the direction of open data?

Marie has been studying open consented data sharing since 2016. Through her current role as Open Futurist at Raidiam, she helps bring together the best people with the best ideas, facilitating the right conversations, and promoting the benefits of open data for consumers, businesses, countries and society at large. Eyal and Marie discuss the history of Open Future World, the current trajectory of open banking, and the shifting views of market players and regulators alike as they try to answer the burning question: Is open banking dead? 

Specifically they discuss: 

• The rise and fall of Open Future World
• The effect of economic headwinds
• Why some banks still hesitate to invest
• Ecosystems within ecosystems
• The Raidiam trust framework

In the extended season finale of Mr. Open Banking, Eyal directly tackles the question of how open banking will change the way we interact with our money, in an attempt to build a vision of the open future. To do so, he breaks the problem down into the three core concepts at the heart of that claim: money, identity and open banking. When it comes to exploring the interplay between digital money and digital identity, one would be hard-pressed to find someone more knowledgeable than his guest, David G.W. Birch. An internationally-recognised author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services, David is often a keynote speaker at industry conferences and international events, a featured guest on business and finance television programs, and a regular contributor to prominent financial publications, including Forbes and The Financial Times. He is also the author of four books, including The Currency Cold War in 2020 and 2014’s Identity is the New Money, his seminal and prescient work on the future of finance. During their discussion, Eyal and David explore a wide range of topics, including the importance of reputation and how the money of the future resembles the money of the past.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The shifting form and function of money
• The relationship between money, identity and reputation
• Why cash becoming irrelevant is a good thing
• How money is really a platform for trust
• How digital identity differs from identity in the real world
• Why open banking standards should support identity
• Banks as the antidote to the one-sided Internet of today

As the open banking movement continues to unfold, many people are asking an obvious but entirely valid question: can we trust open banking? In this episode, Eyal explores the concept of trust in open banking, and how we can learn to trust the data sharing ecosystem upon which open banking is being built. To inform the discussion, he sits down with Ralph Bragg, the Co-Founder and CTO of Raidiam, a company that’s on a mission to create the world’s smartest, most trustworthy data sharing ecosystems. As an internationally-renowned expert in open banking technical standards and trust frameworks, Ralph helped the UK, Brazil and other regions build open banking they could trust. Together, Eyal and Ralph tackle what a data sharing ecosystem actually is, what it does and who the actors are that drive it forward, as well as essential security concepts like authentication, authorization and identity. Most importantly, Eyal and Ralph discuss why increasing consumer trust in open banking is critical, not just for the short term, but to rightly steer the evolution of the Internet itself for decades to come.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The purpose of a data sharing ecosystem
• Strengthening trust in open ecosystems
• Key definitions around identity, security and consent
• Building an effective trust framework
• How trust is enabled in the UK and Brazil
• Comparing aggregated and federated models
• Why trust is critical to the future of the Internet

When it comes to open banking globally, there are several factors that have acted as drivers for the movement, like competition, inclusion, stability and innovation. Although innovation takes a back seat in some regions, there is one place where it is firmly front-and-center: the Middle East. The Middle East and North Africa, a region known by the acronym MENA, has embarked on its own open banking journey, where Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Israel and Egypt have all introduced some form of open banking initiatives. While they may vary in scope and approach, they all have one thing in common: a laser focus on modernizing their banking sectors with innovation acting as the primary driver. In this episode, Eyal will sit down with guest Hakan Eroglu, the Global Open Banking Lead at Mastercard. With more than 13 years of international experience in open banking strategy, Hakan is global in both title and practice. Eyal and Hakan’s focus on a subset of the MENA region, the countries who are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or the GCC.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The meaning of the term “over-banked”
• Key drivers of open banking in the MENA region
• How market vs. regulation is really a spectrum
• An open banking tour of the the GCC members 
• The differences between one country and another
• Digital ID, real-time payments and other extensions 
• Open banking as a vehicle for innovation

Open banking definitions often differ from region to region. In the U.S., where open banking is decidedly market-driven, it is associated more with consent-driven data sharing, rather than standardization or regulation. Outside of regulatory constraints, U.S. open banking efforts are laser-focused on generating business value through true innovation. In this episode, Eyal sits down with Jane Barratt, the Chief Advocacy Officer at MX, one of the American leaders in account aggregation and a true fintech powerhouse. With over two decades of experience in the world of financial services, Jane has seen the open banking movement evolve from multiple perspectives. In her role at MX, Jane works with fintechs, financial institutions, policymakers and regulators to drive open banking initiatives that aim to fundamentally transform the world of finance. During the episode, Eyal and Jane discuss definitions of open banking from the perspective of a leading U.S. fintech, the evolution of standards and the future of American-made open banking.

Specifically they discuss: 

• Definitions of open banking from a U.S. fintech
• How U.S. banks should approach data sharing
• Why market-driven open banking leads to innovation
• The advantages of not having regulatory constraints
• Growing adoption of the FDX standard
• The road to U.S. open banking regulations
• How data should used to make customers’ lives better

Open banking aims to introduce common, open, shared standards for the secure exchange of financial data. As a result, whether you bank with one bank or five, fintech or credit union, JPMC or PayPal, you can finally see all your accounts together, in one place - a concept known as account aggregation. In this episode, Eyal discusses this concept with Rolands Mesters, the CEO and Co-Founder of Nordigen, a European account aggregator who provides connectivity to thousands of banks, absolutely free. A regular guest at fintech events, Rolands has been featured by the industry’s leading media outlets, including TechCrunch, Sifted and Medium, was included in Forbes 30 under 30, and is considered one of the foremost experts on open banking worldwide. During their discussion, Eyal and Rolands explore the story of account aggregation, including how it began, where it’s going in the future and why it might just be the key to building open banking for all.

Specifically they discuss: 

• The definition of account aggregation
• Origins of account aggregation as a concept
• The impacts of open banking on aggregation
• How bank connectivity became commoditized 
• The new role of the account aggregator
• The democratization of open banking 
• Including developers in the narrative

Introducing a disruptive movement like open banking into an already developed environment can be difficult. By contrast, introducing innovation where there is nothing to replace, often referred to as a “green field,” makes it possible to adopt the latest technology immediately, leapfrogging whatever came before. Africa, the ultimate green field, has been undergoing a quiet but steady technological renaissance over the past two decades, as it aims to leapfrog its peers. In this episode, Eyal sits down with Ismail Chaib from Yassir Tech Hub, a startup based out of his birthplace, Algeria. In 2011, Ismail was COO of the Open Bank Project, where he built open banking before the term was even invented. During their conversation, Eyal and Ismail discuss the back story behind the Open Bank Project, the explosion of fintech in Africa, and how open banking can accelerate that boom.Specifically they discuss:-The story of the Open Bank Project-The state of fintech in Africa-M-Pesa and the rise of mobile money-African emergence of open banking-Market vs. Regulatory-driven approaches-Challenges to fintech adoption in Africa-Financial inclusion for over a billion Africans