A new pan-European study from Mobey Forum and Aite Group has revealed, despite the growth of innovation, the majority of consumers would prefer their main bank to their primary source of open banking services.
The report, titled ‘Open Banking: Open Minds? Consumer appetites for open banking services’, consists of a 1000 consumer strong survey based in a range of European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
Elina Mattila, Executive Director, Mobey Forum said: “It’s crucial that banks act on their short-term advantage quickly to avoid disintermediation by TPPs as the open banking market evolves.
“Consumers trust their banks because no-one else does data security and privacy like they do – it’s a cornerstone of their success. Consumer confidence in third party banking services, however, continues to grow.
Opportunities that stem from open banking are beginning to attract consumers with approximately one third of consumers are either ‘very interested’ or ‘extremely interested’ in five open banking enabled use-cases.
This includes account information services (32%), pay by bank (33%), purchase financing (25%), product comparison (35%), and identity check (35%).
“Open banking is the next chapter in the digitalisation story and a new generation of agile, specialist TPPs is forming to capitalise on API-based payment and data services,” continued Mattila.
“If banks want to protect their place at the forefront of the industry they need to act now, either to offer TPP services under their own brands, or to create their own. Either way, they need to move before the TPPs can establish an independent base.”
However, the report also explores user experience and, when questioned over their willingness to adopt a new payment method, a resounding 91% of respondents indicated that they could be tempted to switch either by financial incentives or the promise of greater convenience.
“Trust alone is not enough. Banks must also focus on developing services with convenience and usability in mind,” added Mario Brkic, co-chair of Mobey Forum’s Open Banking Expert Group, George Labs.
“People are already willing to give huge amounts of their personal and financial information to brands like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.
“When the services deliver real value, they are ready to share data. Many open banking TPPs can respond to consumer demand faster than traditional banks can, so the race is on.
“The real winners in open banking will be those that can provide superior customer experiences under a trusted brand.”
