Open Banking

jimbo26

Anyone using the 'benefits' of Open banking.

I have read up a bit on this and really can't see what real, tangible benefits it has for the consumer. It strikes me that there is more of a benefit to the company offering the 'benefit' as they have access to a whole load of data. I can't see anything that would be so good as to make me hand over all this personal data to another company.

Have I missed something? Is there more to it?

masonic

Good question. I fail to see any evidence of open banking being used.

I use an account aggregator and still need to provide the service with my full login information for it to access my accounts. Open banking was supposed to remove this requirement and allow you to authorise specific services to have limited access to your account data that can be easily managed and revoked without changing your login information.

If your question is about whether there is any benefit to using a service that processes your data, then speaking personally, I'd struggle to keep track of my ~20 accounts if it weren't for such services, so I consider them very useful indeed.

jimbo26

masonic wrote: »

If your question is about whether there is any benefit to using a service that processes your data, then speaking personally, I'd struggle to keep track of my ~20 accounts if it weren't for such services, so I consider them very useful indeed.

From what I have read aggregating accounts seems to be the only real benefit at the moment. Personally I use Quicken which keeps track of my finances (14 accounts), and not too arduous to update. Personally aggregating my accounts isn't such a significant benefit to warrant giving companies access to my banking data.

I guess in time they will be further benefits that may make the trade off worth it.

masonic

jimbo26 wrote: »

Personally aggregating my accounts isn't such a significant benefit to warrant giving companies access to my banking data.

It depends what's in your banking data. For me, it's just transfers between accounts in my name and a few direct debits (utilities, credit cards, paypal). All of my itemised spending is on a credit card to which the service does not have access. I suppose the main 'signal' they could get from my data is that I have zero loyalty and exploit every promotional offer I can. This information is supposedly anonymised before being sold on.

Anthorn

jimbo26 wrote: »

Anyone using the 'benefits' of Open banking.

I have read up a bit on this and really can't see what real, tangible benefits it has for the consumer. It strikes me that there is more of a benefit to the company offering the 'benefit' as they have access to a whole load of data. I can't see anything that would be so good as to make me hand over all this personal data to another company.

Have I missed something? Is there more to it?

You're not handing over personally identifiable data, you're handing over transactions data, for example £200 was credited yesterday and a debit card was used in the sum of £50 today and £50 was deposited to a savings account and the balance of the current account is £xx and the balance of the savings account is £xx.

The lack of uptake is not due to Open Banking itself but due to the lack of apps or rather the lack of publicity about apps that access Open Banking. Lastly there are those financial institutions which started supporting apps with the Open Banking method before Open Banking itself started and still do, for example Starling Bank's Marketplace.

jimbo26

I get it isn't identifiable, but still uneasy giving companies access to my bank accounts. I still don't get the benefit, what's in it for the customer?I'm assuming nothing really at the moment, but this may change in the future if developers get on board.

masonic

jimbo26 wrote: »

I get it isn't identifiable, but still uneasy giving companies access to my bank accounts. I still don't get the benefit, what's in it for the customer?I'm assuming nothing really at the moment, but this may change in the future if developers get on board.

For me, the main benefit is I can check the balance of all of my accounts without having to log in to each one individually. This is a massive time saver. As more apps move to fingerprint login, the time saving might decrease.

worried_jim

Yes I use it and I work for a bank so not scared of progress.

I use Smart Bill. It keeps track of all your DD's, SO's and regular subscriptions. I get a weekly email telling me what payments are due the following week and it also gives me the option to cancel any that I no longer need.

I've found it really useful and helpful.

https://smart-bill.co.uk

If I hear about others that interest me I'll give them a go. I also have Monzo, Revolut and Starling bank accounts and these are all set up for the future as well.

jimbo26

I can see the benefits, however as I stated earlier I use Quicken to manage my finances, so all of these benefits are no use to me currently.

jimbo26

worried_jim wrote: »

Yes I use it and I work for a bank so not scared of progress.

Not scared of progress, I'm normally an early adopter of technology. However if an organization is going to make money selling my data, identifiable or not, then the benefit to me has to be worth it. Currently for me it isn't. No doubt in the future the balance will tip in favour of using it.

masonic

jimbo26 wrote: »

I can see the benefits, however as I stated earlier I use Quicken to manage my finances, so all of these benefits are no use to me currently.

Can Quicken automatically log in to your accounts and download transaction data? I was under the impression it was long out of support and required manual data input. I use GNUcash, which is similar to Quicken, and allows me to track my finances in a much more robust fashion, but I need to load in the transactions myself and I wouldn't say it was a replacement for a fully automated aggregation service.