Connect. Amplify. Grow.
Women in Open Banking ANZ (WiOB ANZ) launched in Sydney in the afternoon of Tuesday, 2 July, 2024 — one day after the 4th anniversary of open banking in Australia, which went live with the “big 4” banks in 2020.
It was organised by Open Finance ANZ with the generous support of Mastercard Open Banking and King & Wood Mallesons.
The inaugural event commenced with a workshop attended by 24 women who are active participants in and around open banking in Australia and New Zealand.
The invited attendees came from banks, fintechs, professional services, payments, data, government, academia, and advocacy groups.
The workshop was convened by Lisa Horton from Mastercard Open Banking and observed by Brenton Charnley and Amy McIntyre, also from Mastercard, plus Dr Scott Farrell from KWM.
KWM very kindly hosted the event in their beautiful Sydney offices, allowing the participants to enjoy unparalleled views of Sydney’s harbour and the heads.
Putting our purpose into action — connect, amplify, grow
The purpose of the workshop was to put the core pillars of WiOB ANZ into action:
- Connect — women working in and around open banking in Australia and New Zealand with like-minded peers and industry thought leaders with the goal of collaboration.
- Amplify — women’s voices and ideas by providing a friendly and professional environment where everyone has an opportunity to contribute.
- Grow — each individual’s knowledge and network, and also collectively to grow as a movement.
Participants were divided into small groups across four tables to share experiences and learnings. After a warm introduction from the convenor — and “fun fact” ice breaker introductions at each table — three discussion questions were tabled and discussed, with cross-sharing and feedback.
In parallel, participants’ views were also collected on three “hot topics” via an online polling app, so we could gather some quick data snapshots.
Let’s look at them first.
Results from the quick data snapshots
The first poll question was:
As the CDR passes its 4th anniversary, what do you think are the top 3 achievements of the regime?
Here are the results (based on the pre-filled options):
The second poll question was:
If you had to choose one change for the CDR in 2025, what would it be?
Again, here are the results (based on the pre-filled options):
The third poll question was more creative:
How do you think organisations promoting women can help drive success?
Here is the resulting word cloud:
For the in-depth discussion, we posed more open-ended questions.
Discussion topic 1: Choice, convenience and confidence
Our first question was:
The CDR was intended to provide consumers with choice, convenience and confidence. Has this been achieved?
This phrase was drawn from the the key words used in the “Review into Open Banking: Giving customers choice, convenience and confidence” by Scott Farrell dated December 2017 and published publicly in February 2018.
This document launched the vision for Australia’s Consumer Data Right as a regime that safely and securely controls data sharing, so consumers can have more choice, convenience and confidence in their financial products and services.
When welcoming guests to the panel discussion and networking drinks, which followed the workshop, Dr Farrell dipped back into his original vision for the CDR and quipped this phrase would now haunt him forever!
The thoughts on this question were varied, although most agreed that what was missing currently was a broad array of use cases for consumers to choose from.
Some observations included:
Confidence is a function of choice and convenience
Everyone has “jobs to be done” … but the CDR consent process is too clunky and it sends the wrong message to the user
Screen scraping is too convenient — there’s no friction other than remembering your login and password
CDR has a “cold start” problem
Another strong theme was the need for an education campaign for consumers to understand the purpose and benefits of CDR.
Also, that businesses (including banks) would also benefit from education so they can see how CDR can deliver efficiency benefits and competitive gains, rather than viewing it as additional administrative complexity and compliance costs.
Discussion topic 2: How do we set up CDR for success?
Our second question looked forward to the next 4 years:
What is one thing that you think the CDR must enact and/or achieve in the next 4 years to make it a success and why?
There was a big wish list for what the CDR would achieve in 2025 and beyond, with most participants considering a ban of screen scraping where CDR data is a viable alternative as the most critical success factor, closely followed by enabling action initiation, and fixing the “derived data” problem.
Most attendees agreed that in its current state CDR data cannot yet supplant screen-scraped data for two main reasons:
- Firstly, because those businesses who use screen-scraped data (or data obtained by “impersonated access” as it is now being described in New Zealand) are not able to access CDR data with the same ease and cost.
- Secondly, because the CDR Rules severely limit access to and use of CDR data for use cases where screen-scraped data is the current alternative e.g. bank transactions.
Some observations included:
There are too many silos … we need to do better at joining it up
We’ve trained people to be wary of digital methods due to fraud and scams. That’s why education is so important because it’s nuts that people think the alternatives to CDR are safer (!) when CDR is actually the gold standard
Let’s focus CDR to assist what the market is doing already and inspire the right market behaviours, so that government does not have to intervene
In the future, there will be a lot more “citizen data” and CDR will be essential
What was not able to be answered was, given these restrictions, whether a screen scraping ban would currently be the correct way forward. However, there was agreement that to get the right outcome for the regime, it may be necessary in the future.
We’ve got a “chicken and egg” problem with screen scraping. Do we wait until open banking gets there? Or do we help open banking to get there by sunsetting the alternative?
Several blockers that must be addressed were discussed, including the “derived data” issues under CDR’s privacy safeguards (which are inconsistent with the privacy principles applying to uses of personal information collected through screen scraping); lack of automation and a fully digitised onboarding process for business consumers e.g. hard copy nominated representative forms are required by many data holders; and the need for clarity in consent UX guidelines.
The best answer to this question was therefore— there is no “one thing” — but rather a set of culminative stepping stones that will formulate a bridge and drive success over the next 4 years.
Discussion topic 3: How can women — individually and collectively — drive open banking’s success?
Our final question asked:
How can women in open banking (as a collective and as individuals) help drive open banking’s success?
There were a variety of suggestions such as collaboration projects, hackathons, and more experimentation to test hypotheses (and challenge the risk-averse assumption that the old best ways are the best ways).
Some observations included:
Open banking is like a muscle — we need to build it
Collective thinking is powerful
Open banking is bigger than the Australian market and its economy sectors — it’s a massive global movement — we need to be mindful of interoperability and convergence
Diversity of thinking will always protect the outcome
Conclusions
The feedback from those who attended this event showed how much passion and enthusiasm female voices have to contribute to our industry.
As Jess Turner, the EVP and Head of Global Open Banking and API at Mastercard, powerfully and passionately articulated in her video presentation that was shared later in the evening:
Women are pivotal in making innovation, social change and growth possible.
You can watch her video message, here:
https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7222267821550882816
The link between the Consumer Data Right and empowering women more generally is critical.
Where women have access to products and services that support financial education and literacy, these play profound role in personal as well as community growth. As a collective, our goal is not only to advance consumer data rights but also to elevate the voice and position of women in open banking in our region.
Referring back to the word cloud, when we asked our workshop participants what women could bring to the table to drive success, the two ideas that were most prominent were collaboration and mentorship.
The success of this event can only be attributed to the incredible women who attended and were willing to share their voices and ideas with each other and our broader community. Thank you. 🙏
To stay connected, follow Women in Open Banking ANZ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-open-banking-and-finance/
Open Finance ANZ is a growing community of 1300+ entrepreneurs, innovators and technologists advancing open finance in Australia & New Zealand (ANZ) and advocating for a regulatory and technology environment that supports innovation and injects competition.
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/open-finance-anz/
