Open Banking...

UKDeejay

I have been reading about Open Banking on MSE.
It sounds great, but isn't it just an excuse for people to Spam you with offers for financial products you don't want or need?

eskbanker

UKDeejay said:

I have been reading about Open Banking on MSE.
It sounds great, but isn't it just an excuse for people to Spam you with offers for financial products you don't want or need?

No, what did you read that suggested that?

adamp87

eskbanker said:

UKDeejay said:

I have been reading about Open Banking on MSE.
It sounds great, but isn't it just an excuse for people to Spam you with offers for financial products you don't want or need?

No, what did you read that suggested that?

Sort of really the MSE page explaining about may not say Spam you with offers but..

The idea behind these changes is that they'll bring more competition and innovation to financial services which, in turn, is hoped will lead to more and better products to help manage your money.

For example, you could connect your bank account to an app that would analyse your spending and recommend a new product like a credit card or savings account to save you money, or sign up to a provider which displays all of your accounts with multiple banks in one place so you have a better overview of your finances.

So in a sense it can be used for data that would be used to offer certain products to you.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/open-banking/

eskbanker

But the nature of spam is that it's unsolicited, whereas the entire concept of open banking is that you're in control of whether or not you wish to share your data, and if you choose to do so, you only share it with a specific nominated (and FCA-regulated) third party of your choice.  If you believe that the third party is untrustworthy, don't consent to share your data with them, or if you find out too late, withdraw your consent....

Discomikey

I’ve been using OB across several banks and accounts for quite some time now (probably around 1.5 years) and have not as yet had any specific spam messages or suchlike 👍

UKDeejay

eskbanker said:

UKDeejay said:

I have been reading about Open Banking on MSE.
It sounds great, but isn't it just an excuse for people to Spam you with offers for financial products you don't want or need?

No, what did you read that suggested that?

Maybe I have misread/misinterpreted it, but 'share your data...' sounds to me like a 'free-for-all' excuse to bombard you with things you don't want/need - like trying to set your cookies in a way that a website will work, but won't flood you with ads you have no interest in... Impossible!!!

Penguin_

I did some market research into Open Banking & as someone who didn't use it previously I thought it was ok but as I only bank with Natwest it didn't really interest me.

UKDeejay

eskbanker said:

... and if you choose to do so, you only share it with a specific nominated (and FCA-regulated) third party of your choice.  If you believe that the third party is untrustworthy, don't consent to share your data with them, or if you find out too late, withdraw your consent....

So, you can 'share' with/between your own bank(s), for example, and you shouldn't get 'unsolicited' offers of products/services from other banks, with which you have no connection???

eskbanker

UKDeejay said:

eskbanker said:

... and if you choose to do so, you only share it with a specific nominated (and FCA-regulated) third party of your choice.  If you believe that the third party is untrustworthy, don't consent to share your data with them, or if you find out too late, withdraw your consent....

So, you can 'share' with/between your own bank(s), for example, and you shouldn't get 'unsolicited' offers of products/services from other banks, with which you have no connection???

Yes, that's right, you're in control of which companies you choose to share your data with.

Eco_Miser

UKDeejay said:

  like trying to set your cookies in a way that a website will work, but won't flood you with ads you have no interest in... Impossible!!!

Well yes, but because cookies neither stop nor permit ads. If you permit all the admongers'  cookies they'll get an idea of what your interests are, and flood you with ads that you do have an interest in.

Alternatively an add-on such as uMatrix can block the scripts that run the ads at source, as well as the unwanted cookies.

blue.peter

I did like First Direct's Internet Banking Plus, which was a great aggregation tool. But it relied on screen scraping, was never developed, and gradually became less useful as a result. They withdrew it last year. I'd really like to see something like that again. Open Banking has the potential, but doesn't (yet) include anything like all of the relevant institutions. If it's to be useful, it doesn't just need to involve all of the clearing banks, but also credit card issuers, ISA providers (including S&S ones), smaller savings banks, mortgage lenders and so on.