Government discusses open data measures with banking and finance industry
(20 February 2017 – Australia) The Australian government met with the country’s key banking industry representatives to gather responses to a recent proposal from the Productivity Commission that recommended open data measures to increase competition and customer experiences in financial services.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the Australian Bankers' Association, Business Council of Australia, Insurance Council of Australia, banks, telecoms and information technology companies, lawyers and consultants. A similar meeting will take place on Tuesday with members of the startup community.
The Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, Angus Taylor, attended as the government sought industry views on barriers to data sharing, including limitations on reuse and other legal and privacy considerations. The government also wanted to know if public perceptions of government data collection was negative, suggesting it was considering a campaign to counter concerns, including privacy or security.
In a draft report in November, the Productivity Commission said a "comprehensive right" should be created to allow customers who asked for their data to be ported from one bank to another to boost competition. The banks expect this recommendation will remain a key plank of the final report to be delivered to the government in next month.
The House of Representatives economics committee report into the major banks, also in November, went further than the commission by calling for banks to create "application programming interfaces" (APIs), a particular technology to facilitate data sharing, by the middle of next year. That committee will re-convene to quiz the big four bank bosses early next month.
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