Industry expects open banking will have the greatest impact in retail banking

A new study from Finastra shows which sectors of the financial services industry professionals believe will be the most affected by open banking.

49% of survey respondents believe the greatest impact will be on retail banking. This means that respondents expect to see more open banking solutions in the retail banking space, such as Wise’s service that allows banks to integrate Wise into their own systems to offer international payments at competitive rates. 

This is a shift from Finastra’s findings last year, where corporate banking was identified as the space that would benefit the most from open banking. This year, corporate banking fell to third place with 41%. Finastra suggests that corporate banking was ranked high last year and lower this year because the sector was an early adopter and has since experienced a positive impact attributable to open banking, giving it less upside in the future. 

An example of open banking in the corporate sector would be Goldman Sachs’ Transaction Banking platform, which offers a series of APIs that other banks and corporations can use to manage cash flow the way Goldman does. Since the platform’s launch in the U.S. last June, the bank has gained over 250 clients, $35 billion in deposits and moved trillions of dollars. Goldman also expanded the service into the U.K. last month. 

Payments came in second place with 45% -- an increase of seven percentage points from last year when it placed second to last with 38%, suggesting that there’s been more movement in the space than anticipated. 

The research was conducted amongst 785 professionals at global financial institutions and banks.