Scotland Fintech Festival – Unlocking the Customer Innovation that Open Banking Enables

  • Thought Leadership

FWB Park Brown were pleased to take part in this year’s Scotland Fintech Festival by hosting a virtual event titled; Unlocking the Customer Innovation that Open Banking Enables. We were delighted to be joined by Louise Smith, Chair of Innovate Finance, who led our panel discussion which included:

The event opened acknowledging the broad topic that is ‘open banking’. The session brought insightful conversation from the panel and audience around the benefit for customers, ever changing expectations, the view of the regulator and a discussion around the importance of education.

What’s in it for customers:

Open banking was introduced primarily to drive innovation and competition. It’s imperative that at the heart of it, we continue addressing customer needs. Duncan passionately spoke about the foundation of OneBanx and the purpose behind it; to ensure customers can understand, resonate and take advantage of this.

By bringing open banking to life, people who aren’t as digitally savvy can reap the benefits. Combining the physical interface with driving sustainable, open solutions for banks and consumers appears to resonate globally with places like Europe, Brazil and Australia that are advancing further within open banking.

Through thought provoking discussions, it was apparent that more is needed to educate consumers and, with open banking being implemented along the way, we need to take customers on that journey of education towards more efficient financial management. Examples like ‘buy now pay later’ were discussed as there are still too many consumers with insufficient access to financial services products.

Customer expectations:

Customer expectations continue to increase and of course, consumers want things as simple as possible. Could we be moving towards a society of digital identity with authentication established using a QR code? We need to make inroads to make the lives of customers easier through education, literacy and the further empowerment of customers to take control of their money.

Is regulation a positive driving force for change:

The FCA has the difficult task of protecting customers whilst maintaining innovation and the panel debated it was a fine line to tread enabling regulation, helping and allowing change for customers. The use of Sandbox appears to be positive and helps transparency within the regulations and customer journey.

It was also acknowledged that people no longer look towards the UK to scale their businesses through regulatory enforce. It was discussed we need to find better ways to protect customers whilst learning from our mistakes but not excluding the majority. Amsterdam now appears more attractive to scale than the UK.

If you would like to watch the panel discussion please click on the below video link:

[divider line_type=”No Line”]

For more information on our events programme, attending our events or working with us, please contact Sophie Moteau, our Programme & Events Lead.

Get in touch

Contact the team at FWB Park Brown to discuss your individual or company requirements, or to discover more about our specialist services.

Share