“Finicity , a Mastercard company and leading provider of open banking solutions, announced today that it is expanding its one-touch Mortgage Verification Service (MVS) availability within ICE Mortgage Technology TM, part of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of data, technology and market infrastructure. This integration enables borrowers to permission data quickly and easily so lenders can verify assets, income, and employment in a streamlined interaction”

“52% of Americans have never heard of the term “ open banking ,” and only about half of those actually know what open banking is, according to a new report by Axway . While many in the financial services world know what open banking illustrates and what services it can provide, many others have yet to connect the dots to what a truly open financial ecosystem represents. At its core, open banking is about letting people control their money . The survey shows that it is a principle people overwhelmingly support: 84% of Americans agree they should have control of their financial data, and banks should not prevent the movement of money between other financial services.”

“Santander UK is reporting the rollout of its CashFlow Manager App in the UK. The App is available for corporate and commercial banking accounts. Utilizing the Open Banking ecosystem in the UK, the app is described as enabling customers to have a single view of multiple balances and transactions across different financial services firms that include 98% of UK banks. Santander partnered with tomato pay, QR-code-based payments and invoice service, on the App.”

“Today, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, welcomed the final report from the Advisory Committee on Open Banking . The report makes recommendations on how to modernize the Canadian financial services sector and implement a secure open banking system that gives Canadian consumers the confidence and convenience they are looking for in today’s economy. The global economy is undergoing a rapid digital transformation—and the Canadian economy and financial sector are following suit. The Canadian financial sector must keep pace with the needs and expectations of consumers in the rapidly changing digital economy—while preserving the strengths of Canada’s banking system, which is recognized and admired around the world.”

“NYMBUS ®, a leading provider of banking technology solutions, today announced a partnership with Plaid , a data network powering the digital financial ecosystem, to more instantly authenticate and fund customer bank accounts for financial institutions. With this integration, Nymbus bank and credit union clients can securely onboard new users in a matter of seconds, which translates to more active and engaged banking experiences.”

“The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) is delighted to learn that the CMA has decided, in line with the Trustee’s recommendations to mandate Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) as the mechanism for implementing sweeping… Simply put, sweeping is the automatic transfer of money between a customer’s own accounts, such as moving excess funds into a separate savings account or using them to repay a loan or overdraft account. VRPs allow customers to safely connect authorised payments providers to their bank account so that they can make payments on the customer’s behalf within agreed parameters that offer more control and transparency than existing alternatives.”

“Mastercard and Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking have partnered to deliver a new Open Banking payment solution to Lloyds Bank’s business clients. Lloyds Bank’s PayFrom Bank, enabled by Mastercard’s Open Banking Merchant Payment Solution, lets consumers make payments on an organisation’s website directly from their bank account, without having to enter any payment details.   The solution – which is compatible with most retail bank accounts – gives consumers greater choice over how they pay and enhances their user experience by providing a quick, secure and seamless payment option without the need to remember passwords or input data.”

“Finicity, a Mastercard company and leading provider of open banking solutions, announced today that it has signed a data access agreement with Green Dot (NYSE: GDOT), a digital bank and fintech focused on delivering trusted, best-in-class banking and payment solutions that seamlessly connect people to their money…The Finicity direct API experience will first be available through Green Dot’s flagship digital bank GO2bank and will allow customers to link their accounts to third-party apps that use Finicity’s secure data network and financial data – further enabling them to connect, manage and move their money in a secure and seamless environment.”

“Canadian consumers are being left to share their financial data in potentially risky ways as the government winds its way through a belaboured open banking review process. As global competitors flock to countries with established open banking regulations, consumers and fintech companies are using workaround processes to access online banking services. Open banking advocates say the delayed regulatory review could cause Canada to fall behind further and restrict the ability of domestic fintechs to scale. Critics, meanwhile, warn the new regime could bring risks of its own, including the potential for more cyberattacks on banks. Meanwhile, open banking remains an elusive term to most Canadians.“

“Meet Airbank , a startup that is taking advantage of open banking regulation and related APIs to aggregate all your bank accounts. Focused on startups and small and medium companies, the company wants to build an all-in-one banking interface to access financial data, initiate payments, manage cash flow and more…The startup’s value proposition is quite simple and can be easily explained in one screenshot. With Airbank, you can enter your login information for all the bank accounts and related accounts that you use. After that, you can view everything from your Airbank account.”

“Akoya LLC announced today that Wells Fargo has joined the Akoya Data Access Network . Fintechs and data aggregators can now request application programming interface (API)-based access to Wells Fargo customer data for mutual customers through Akoya…Akoya implements Financial Data Exchange API specifications, which remove the need for bank customers to share login credentials in order to provide third-party financial apps access to their financial data. Additionally, compared to credential-based data aggregation, commonly known as “screen scraping,” APIs improve data access reliability and reduce security risks.”

“Open banking is the practice of enabling secure interoperability while maintaining the principles of customer centricity, security, and trust. This practice grants third-party providers (TTPs)—often fintech startups—open access to financial data from banks and other financial institutions to create new products and services in partnership with the incumbent banks.  In 2007, the original Payment Services Directive—or open banking as it’s also known—went into effect to create a unified payment market in the European Union. This eventually forced the UK’s nine biggest banks to release data in a secure, standardized way, so data could be shared more easily between organizations. Fast forward to 2021, the European Banking Authority passed the Strong Consumer Authentication (SCA)—a PSD2 requirement—for payment service providers to make online payments more secure and prevent financial fraud. In the UK, the enforcement deadline has been extended six months from September 14, 2021 to March 14, 2022.”

“London-headquartered Volt, an open payments gateway provider, has secured $23.5 million in capital through a Series A round that was led by EQT Ventures. Augmentum Fintech, Fuel Ventures, and angel investors including Adyen co-founder Robert Kraal and FIS non-executive director Gabriel de Montessus took part in Volt ‘s latest investment round as well. Launched in 2019, Volt aims to provide convenient access to Open Banking payments across Europe. It reportedly connects more than 5,000 banking platforms in the UK and EU. This helps bring together new generation account-to-account payments infrastructure to a single point of access.”

“According to a new report by Mastercard, which conducted in-depth research into how prepared European countries are to embrace the open banking ecosystem, the Nordic countries have been crowned best placed to take advantage of it, together with the UK. Open banking is fast becoming a worldwide phenomenon. It empowers consumers and businesses to take control of their financial data and their financial futures while stimulating competition and innovation among financial service providers. The report – ‘Open Banking Readiness Index: The Future of Open Banking in Europe’ – found the Nordics’ and UK’s digital infrastructures ensure the countries are very well-placed to allow widespread use of this concept.”

“Plaid acquired Flannel, a fintech building payments APIs, in March as it looks to push deeper into helping firms and consumers move money.”

“London-based Yapily , a leading Open Banking infrastructure provider, has launched a new bulk payments service in the UK market. Yapily has started the service by going live with Comma , an SME payments platform in that country.    Yapily claims to have simplified the complex process of bulk payments – under Open Banking- for small and medium businesses in the UK. This service was only available to medium to large-scale companies with corporate banking accounts so far.”

“Last year, Plaid announced a goal to commit 75% of our traffic to APIs by the end of 2021. This target for fair, reliable, and secure API-based data exchange is one of our top priorities as the industry moves full-steam ahead towards a fully digital financial system.  That’s why I’m thrilled to announce an open finance partnership with Capital One — a digital finance innovator — and the successful completion of our migration to the Capital One API. As a result, Capital One customers can enjoy reliable and secure access to the apps and services in our network, and through the technical partnership we are able to make significant headway in our efforts to help build a credential-less ecosystem.”

“Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, will enable consumers to share data on their cryptoasset holdings with their fintech apps and service providers, including a broad array of financial institutions, wealth managers, and lenders, enhancing consumers’ financial management and control as cryptoasset investing reaches the mainstream. This first-in-market capability will be enabled through the integration of AllData® Aggregation from Fiserv with Verady , the leading provider of cryptocurrency tax, accounting, and audit technology products and integrations. AllData Aggregation enables thousands of financial institutions, fintechs and other companies to access data and facilitate transactions across existing and emerging applications, and tens of millions of consumers to connect to their bank account, billing, card, mortgage and other data through the third parties of their choosing.”

“HSBC has opened an API developer portal for firms to try out and integrate the bank’s suite of application programming interfaces. The initiative enables customers and developers to find the right APIs for their business needs, access the technical documentation, and try out APIs in the test environment, enabling rapid integration into their own products.Initially, the portal will provide access to treasury payment and account information APIs, and a number of APIs for trade processing, custody holdings, bank guarantee status and global disbursements.”