Eighty-eight percent of finance institutions in the UAE plan to enable open banking in the next 12 months, a survey conducted by Finastra research revealed.

Open Banking is a system that provides third-party access to financial data through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).

“The biggest benefit for the masses is that Open Banking changes how banks handle customers’ financial information, putting control back in the hands of the customer,” Wissam Khoury, SVP and General Manager MEA and APAC at Finastra said.

“We believe that it will be the first step towards Open Finance which will see the next wave of innovation in financial services being created on open platforms, using open APIs and open software solutions,” Khoury said.

The greatest impact of open banking will be on corporate banking according to 57 percent of respondents, followed by retail banking and payments (both at 51 percent).

According to 61 percent of UAE banks surveyed by Finastra, better customer service and experience capabilities would motivate banks to collaborate more with other financial institutions and developers.

Future collaboration can be fostered by standardizing best practices across the industry via regulators for 69 percent of respondents and via technology for 53 percent of respondents.

Ninety-four percent of respondents agree or strongly agree that collaboration has been a driver for success in their organization, while 91 percent agree or strongly agree that it has helped make their business more efficient.

Forty-eight percent of UAE financial institutions find “reduced control in decision making” a barrier to collaboration.

The study by Finastra research, titled “Open Banking and Collaboration: State of the nation survey 2020”, was conducted amongst 774 financial institutions across the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, France, Germany, Hong Kong and the UAE by the end of January 2020. More than 100 responses were gathered in the UAE.

(Writing by Gerard Aoun; Editing by Seban Scaria)

(gerard.aoun@refinitiv.com)

#UAE #FINANCIALSERVICES #BANKING

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. The content does not provide tax, legal or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Read our full disclaimer policy here

© ZAWYA 2020