Summary
Publication Date: September 2014
The Open Data Institute was commissioned by HM Government and engaged Fingleton Associates to explore how competition and consumer outcomes in UK banking could be affected by banks giving customers the ability to share their transaction data with third parties using external Application Programming Interfaces (APIs1). As part of our work, we also reviewed how these outcomes would be improved if banks published non-‐personal data as open data.
These two forms of data access comprise the core reference points throughout the document. In the main, when we refer to external APIs we mean read only access to some or all transaction history data and other account information. Occasional references to write access, such as the ability to initiate payments, are labelled as such. When we refer to open data, we generally describe the data set in question on each occasion.
We largely focus on the implementation of these data sharing concepts in two core banking markets: Personal Current Accounts (PCAs) and SME Lending. However, we have also tried to capture some of the benefits that would accrue in other adjacent markets.
