European financial institutions are spending between €50-100m on Open banking initiatives, with spend exceeding €100m for 45% of the 290 financial institutions studied by aggregator Tink.
Two-thirds of banks polled by Tink say Open Banking budgets have grown since last year, with annual spending rising by between 20%-29%. Just ten percent of institutions have slowed their investments in this area. The data follows the publication of research by Finastra conducted among 774 banks worldwide which found that 86% of global banks are looking to use APIs to enable Open Banking capabilities in the next 12 months. In the Tink poll, the opportunity to improve customer experience was the biggest driver for Open Banking spend — cited by 44% of the financial institutions surveyed. This was followed by IT modernisation (39%) and process optimisation (34%). Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO, Tink, says: "The size of these investments prove that open banking has moved firmly from compliance challenge to commercial opportunity in the minds of financial institutions. Not only has it become integral to the digital transformation of financial institutions and been embedded across all parts of the organisation — it has also emerged as a key driver of revenue growth and an important differentiator when it comes to customer engagement and experience."