Open Banking — This is the sign you have been looking for…
Every day, on every scroll of LinkedIn or at every promotion of a fintech event, industry experts herald Open Banking as the next big thing — increasing competition between the banks, providing customers with better choices, helping people better manage their money, promoting innovation etc. Open Banking is everywhere — in the banking world.
However, it’s a different story in the world outside of banking. None of my friends or family or wider social circle know what Open Banking is, let alone how it might benefit them or why they would use it.
Nope, really — nobody is talking about Open Banking over a beer.
What is behind the apathy for Open Banking?
The root cause is multi-faceted, but two factors that contribute to the slow take-up of Open Banking are a lack of education about personal and banking data and the subsequent fear of sharing data, particularly when you don’t fully understand to what end it is being used.
The banking industry is failing to provide a wide-ranging appeal for Open Banking or the associated communications to help people understand its potential.
Give me one good reason
What is the one good reason — or use case — which will act as a catalyst for Open Banking? What is ‘The Why’ for Open Banking?
Undoubtedly data sharing, akin to Open Banking, has an image problem — whether it’s the long-held suspicion that Big Banks want you to aggregate your accounts to provide them with more opportunities to entice you with another credit card, or the hangover from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the rightly held concern about with whom it is safe to share your data — whatever the reason, be it reality or myth — there is a heavy dose of scepticism about this widely discussed banking ‘revolution.’
If it is a revolution, it’s a quiet one.
Until now.
Sustainably — The Open Banking Tech for Good Use Case
Sustainably has launched a ‘tech for good’ platform leveraging Open Banking capabilities to enable everyone to round up spare change from their shopping transactions and donate it to their favourite charity.
Sustainably supporters will contribute towards big social goals, through micro-donations which together make a big impact. The more donations generated, the bigger the impact and positive change. It’s easy to get started — simply sign up, pick a Charity, connect your bank using Open Banking and start to see your day to day shopping transform lives.
Open Banking — Is it secure?
What about security? How do I ‘connect’ my bank to Sustainably? In the past you may have used a method called ‘screen scraping’ to connect your bank account to a service, like Yodlee, which can aggregate your accounts in one place to understand your overall financial outgoings.
Sustainably uses APIs — Application Programming Interfaces to provide read-only access to your point of sale (POS) transactions. This is the modern secure way to provide access to your bank account without sharing your online banking credentials with a third party. When you connect your bank to Sustainably, the POS transactions processed are anonymised and are not stored or passed on to anyone else.
The use of APIs is a common everyday occurrence to access applications like Google maps, Twitter and Instagram — APIs are the glue that enables Sustainably to take advantage of Open Banking. This innovative technology has created a solution that drives inclusivity, transparency and more favourable outcomes for people in our society who may be vulnerable or disadvantaged.
Sustainably provides a compelling ‘why’ for Open Banking.
You may have thought of a million reasons not to give Open Banking a go, but Sustainably gives you one good reason to give your much-needed support to a charitable cause. This is the sign you have been looking for.
To find out more about Sustainably go to https://sustainably.co/
