Banking News

Singapore Banks Throw Support Behind Open Banking – Finastra

(29 May 2020 – Singapore) Financial institutions in Singapore are supportive of the Open Banking movement and fintech collaboration with almost all (98 percent) believing Open Banking is critical to their organisation, according to a Finastra survey of 110 financial institutions and banks.

Close to nine in ten (86 percent) of the banks are either committed to or considering opening their application programming interfaces (APIs) in the next 12 months.

Despite the open banking optimism, a number of financial institutions believe regulation is currently limiting progress. More than half of the financial institutions cited that “regulations are too tight” (56 percent), while 90 percent called for “greater global harmonization of regulation on innovation”. Two-thirds (66 percent) of organisations also want to see regulators create standardized best practices across the industry to help foster collaboration.

“It’s encouraging to see that financial institutions are embracing the Open Banking model enabled by open APIs, and that collaboration is already helping so many become more efficient,” stated Finastra Asia Pacific (APAC) and Middle East and Africa (MEA) senior vice president and general manager Wissam Khoury.

“It’s clear, however, that regulation needs become a facilitator rather than a barrier going forward. I’m excited to see the industry make further strides towards enabling a truly collaborative model to drive the industry forward and enable true open finance,” he added.