Pittwater Life September 2020 Issue

Business Life: Law
Business Life
Open Banking: will it
offer customers relief?
In August 2017 we wrote
about the development of
Open Banking and an issues
paper titled ‘Review into
Open Banking in Australia’
distributed by Treasury. In May
2017 the Treasurer announced
that “… the Government will
introduce an Open Banking
regime that will increase
access to banking productivity
and consumer data by
consumers and third parties,
if the consumer consents,
and that the government will
commission an independent
review to recommend the
best approach to implement
the Open Banking regime in
Australia”.
As of 1 July, 2020 the first
phase of Open Banking was
launched when the Australian
Competition and Consumer
Commission (ACCC) officially
switched on the Consumer
Data Right (CDR) regime.
Consumers are now able to
direct the four major banks
(ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac)
to share specified CDR data in
relation to products with their
main brands with accredited
third parties (Accredited
Persons).
Open Banking is said to give
customers greater access to
and control over their own
banking data. Open Banking
enables the customer to direct
that they, or third parties
chosen by them, be provided
with pre-determined parts
of their banking data in a
secure environment and in
a prescribed way, so that it
can be used to offer new or
better services for example,
more competitive banking
products that better suit their
needs, or banking products
that would otherwise not have
been available to them, or
better financial management,
accounting tax and budgeting
tools. The term is also used
to refer to enabling open
access to bank’s data on their
products and business.
As Australia began its
review, jurisdictions overseas
in for example the UK and
the European Union had
introduced the system and
USA, Singapore and Japan
were moving towards an Open
Banking regime.
Over the years various
reports e.g. the 2014 Murray
Inquiry into the Financial
System argued for the
with Jennifer Harris
development of standards
for accessing and formatting
data and product information,
and addressed consumer
pricing concerns to strengthen
confidence and trust in the
use of data.
In 2015, The Harper Review
into Competition Policy
recommended that the
government consider ways to
improve individual’s ability
to access their own data to
improve customer choices.
The Productivity
66 SEPTEMBER 2020
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