UK lenders told to extend open banking to e-wallets, cards
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has requested the nine biggest UK lenders extend   open banking provisions to e-wallets, credit cards and prepaid cards. It's urged the banks to create a governing body for common standards on application programming interfaces (APIs), software bridges that enable the sharing of customers' financial data with non-banking firms. The project has been extended to coincide with the API requirements' initiation in January, with a release programme due over the next two years.

The UK's Open Banking project is being expanded to embrace all payment account types - including credit cards, prepaid cards and e-wallets - covered by PSD2.

In a bid to boost competition and innovation, last year the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) told the nine largest current account providers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland to set up a body to build common API standards to let customers share their financial data with non-bank providers.



With the core set of requirements coming into force in January, the CMA and UK Treasury is already looking ahead to expanding the project to let bank customers using credit cards, e-wallets and prepaid cards take advantage of open banking services through a programme of releases over the next two years.



Imran Gulamhuseinwala, trustee of the Open Banking Implementation Entity, says: "Key to any innovation is the process of discovery and it became clear through the second half of 2017 that there is much more the OBIE could do to drive adoption of Open Banking and create a richer environment for new services.



"These enhancements should give even greater confidence to the fintech community to seize the opportunity to participate fully in the financial services ecosystem. They will create standards for future dated, recurring and international payments as well as all the payment and product types covered by PSD2."