The European Union is working on the third iteration of its regulatory framework governing open banking. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, open banking rules remain in legislative limbo and have faced pushback from many financial institutions, causing some to speculate whether the model will ever gain traction in the U.S.
At its core, open banking is about unlocking consumer financial data—once the sole domain of banks—for third-party service providers. Using application programming interfaces (APIs) as a bridge, these fintech companies can provide the array of financial services that consumers have come to expect, including everything from mobile banking to peer-to-peer payments.
The demand for these services means that the open banking model is moving forward regardless of whether nations take a regulatory-first or market-driven approach—and likely will for years to come.
Breaking Down Siloes
One of the initial reasons the EU issued its revised Payments Services Directive (PSD2) was to reduce the practice of screen scraping—where non-bank partners copy banking data for use in their own platforms. Because screen scraping is fraught with privacy and fraud concerns, PSD2 dictated the use of APIs as the secure method for connecting banks with third parties.
Another motivation behind the issuance of PSD2 was to enhance competitiveness, both within the region and in relation to foreign banks. In many European countries, a small number of dominant players have long controlled the financial services market—an issue regulators believed open banking could help address.
Leveling the playing field can drive innovation, but it also requires establishing uniform compliance and technology standards across the region. However, years after PSD2 went into effect, fragmentation persists.
France, for example, has implemented a nationwide API standard that consolidates its financial operations around the Systèmes technologiques d’échange et de traitement (STET) clearing house—a protocol developed by the country’s six major banks. In contrast, many other EU countries, such as Spain and the Netherlands, still lack a standardized API format.
To address the gaps in PSD2, EU regulators are already at work on PSD3, which could launch in 2027. Among its goals are breaking down the siloes that still exist across the region, enhancing consumer protections, and fostering innovation. PSD3 is also designed to support the development of a unified EU payments market, simplifying both cross-border and cross-currency transactions.
An Uphill Battle
Along with the EU, Britain has been at the forefront of the open banking movement, and according to a recent whitepaper, the UK government aims to keep it that way. The country’s National Payments Vision manifesto outlined the current issues and proposed solutions within the sector.
One key insight from the research is that open banking is critical to the future of the financial services industry in Britain. Additionally, for open banking to scale and foster competition in the UK, the country must establish a more robust regulatory framework.
Another innovation is real-time payments, a hallmark of the open banking model. UK regulators noted that account-to-account payments should become ubiquitous due to their substantial benefits. Beyond instant settlement, real-time payments offer minimal transaction fees and increased transparency.
For these reasons, real-time payments have rapidly caught on in countries like India and Brazil. However, despite the UK government’s goal to bring real-time payments widespread, it is facing an uphill battle. There were 31.4 billion purchases made by UK-issued debit and credit cards last year, a 4% year-over-year uptick.
Challenges to the Use Case
The ubiquity of cards and the established financial infrastructure are two of the main reasons why U.S. consumers have been slow to adopt both real-time payments and open banking. After all, many consumers view paying by debit card and ACH as paying by bank, and these payment types are efficient enough that there has been little significant outcry for change.
Still, there has been movement toward real-time payments in recent years. The Clearing House, a consortium of major U.S. banks, launched the RTP Network in 2017. Two years ago, the Federal Reserve launched its FedNow service.
Both networks have made strides since then, as both services have drastically increased the transaction limits on their systems. Due to its longer tenure, RTP is dominating the U.S. real-time payments market, but businesses still account for 80% of the transactions on the RTP network.
There are several reasons why real-time payments haven’t caught on in the U.S consumer market. First, there is currently no way to dispute a real-time payment transaction that appears suspicious or erroneous—a capability most consumers expect.
“That functionality doesn’t exist on RTP and FedNow,” Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research told PaymentsJournal. “So, when we talk about use cases, it’s the sender knows the receiver, and the sender and the receiver agree on the amount. The sender agrees that there’s no dispute, and he’s got no claim to the money once it leaves his account. It’s done, and he has zero recourse.”
Another reason why RTP and FedNow are not yet ready for merchants’ use cases is they only allow users to send money.
“There’s no function where you can request money,” Apgar said. “If you walk into my store and tap your debit card, I’m sending a request and saying, ‘Take money out of his account and put it in my account.’ But there’s no way for me to do that. You have to initiate the payment.”
An Uncertain Framework
These limitations are part of the reason real-time payments haven’t flourished in the U.S. However, another major factor is the absence of a comprehensive regulatory framework to govern them.
Last year, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced its much-anticipated rules to guide open banking. These regulations marked the implementation of Section 1033—a portion of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was enacted after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. This rule had been shelved for over a decade before finally being activated.
The goal of the regulations was to give individuals the freedom to switch financial services companies with the ease of switching a streaming subscription. According to the CFPB, once consumers have the power to shop around for financial products, it will drive financial institutions to innovate and provide better customer service.
Much like PSD2, Section 1033 was designed to protect consumers’ data from bad actors, but it also contained provisions to eliminate junk fees— transactions fees that are sometimes charged by banks and fintechs.
However, a change in presidential administration has called the future of Section 1033 into question, as there is speculation that the CFPB could vacate the rule entirely. Still, it is possible that the CFPB could instead revise Section 1033 and move forward with the rule.
Taking a Step Back
One of the main reasons the future of Section 1033 has been uncertain is the substantial pushback from many leading financial institutions. A central concern among banks is that the rule could exacerbate the compliance burden on financial institutions that are already heavily regulated.
There are also ongoing concerns that unlocking customer banking data could do more harm than good.
Worries about third parties in the financial system intensified after the collapse of fintech Synapse, whose failure to properly document its money flows led to approximately $85 million in frozen customer funds. In the aftermath, many regulators called for stricter oversight of banks’ partnerships with third parties.
“We created these words like neobank, digital-only bank, and fintech bank, but they are really just pass-throughs for various banking aspects,” James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research told PaymentsJournal. “We added an entire layer of technology and technologists, oftentimes without considering compliance.”
“However, a bank is a real thing,” he said. “It is a licensed institution that is regulated, and fundamentals like risk mitigation and ledger management should never fall by the wayside.”
The substantial risks banks face drove JPMorgan Chase to consider an action that could reshape the U.S. financial system. It announced plans to charge fintech companies a fee for accessing customer banking data.
Fintechs have thrived in recent years largely due to free access to such data. Imposing fees could cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially threaten the viability of many fintech business models.
With or Without Blessing
If Chase moves forward with this plan, it could have significant implications for the open banking model in the U.S. One of the core principles of open banking is that third parties should have free access to consumer data in order to deliver better solutions and drive innovation.
Because of this, there has already been pushback against Chase’s strategy, and the bank could still revise its plans. Chase has stated that its proposed fee structure remains open to negotiation.
This is just one of many challenges that must be ironed out before open banking can become a global reality. However, the digitalization of banking and modernization of payments have raised consumer expectations to the point where most financial institutions can no longer meet demand without third-party support.
This dynamic alone is likely to keep open banking moving forward—with or without regulatory blessing.
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