UK pushes ‘open finance’
The UK Financial Conduct Authority published proposals to extend open‑banking into broader 'open finance' so more financial data can be shared across firms and products including mortgages. (financialreporter.co.uk) Secondarily, the FCA framed the move as enabling easier product access and innovation, which implies lenders will need stronger API contracts, consent tracking and explainable decisioning to ingest external data. (investmentexecutive.com)
Britain’s financial regulator wants people to share more than bank-account data, widening “open banking” into “open finance” across products including mortgages, pensions and insurance. (fca.org.uk) The Financial Conduct Authority published that vision on April 14, 2026, saying consumers and businesses could use secure, consent-based data sharing to get better deals and more tailored services. The regulator said it will focus first on small and medium-sized businesses seeking credit and on consumers trying to manage or access mortgages. (fca.org.uk) Open banking already lets people share current-account payment data with regulated third-party apps and services. Open finance would extend the same model to a wider set of products, including credit, mortgages, pensions and insurance. (fca.org.uk) The Financial Conduct Authority said firms could launch some open-finance products before a full legal regime is in place if they already have access to the data and the right permissions. It said it will work with His Majesty’s Treasury on options for a formal regulatory framework by the end of 2027. (fca.org.uk) The push builds on a larger “smart data” policy in Britain, which is meant to let people tell companies to move or share their data securely across sectors. A 2024 government roadmap listed banking, finance, home buying, energy, retail, telecommunications and transport as target areas. (gov.uk) The regulator is not starting from zero. The Financial Conduct Authority said open banking in the United Kingdom had more than 16 million users by late 2025, and open-banking payments rose 53% year over year. (fca.org.uk) Another building block is variable recurring payments, which let customers authorize repeat payments from a bank account within set limits and dates. Open Banking Limited says the Competition and Markets Authority required nine large banks to build that application programming interface for “sweeping” money between a customer’s own accounts. (openbanking.org.uk) The Financial Conduct Authority has also been redesigning the plumbing behind open banking. In an August 2025 feedback statement, it said a new industry-owned “Future Entity” is expected to become the main standards body for open-banking application programming interfaces, performance monitoring and certification, and that its role could later expand into open finance. (fca.org.uk) His Majesty’s Treasury is expected to introduce legislation in 2026 giving the Financial Conduct Authority new powers to write open-banking rules, according to the regulator’s December 2025 update. The regulator said those powers are needed to put open banking on a commercially sustainable, long-term footing. (fca.org.uk) Industry groups backed the new direction. Innovate Finance chief strategy officer Adam Jackson said open finance could “power a new wave of innovation,” while the regulator said its next step in 2026 is to test practical use cases through its Smart Data Accelerator and a prioritization task force before turning that vision into rules. (fca.org.uk)
