Charlotte Crosswell, Chair of the Centre for Finance, Innovation, and Technology (CFIT), talks about the goals of CFIT and how the UK can be a global leader in improving financial services. They discuss demystifying open banking and finance, driving progress, transitioning to a commercial model, and the importance of financial services innovation.
CFIT aims to tackle the complex issues faced by the FinTech industry and work with government and regulators to improve financial services for everyone.
The integration of open finance into existing institutions requires significant changes to legacy systems and establishing a sustainable funding model is crucial for its success.
Deep dives
The Center for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) was born out of the Ron Khalifa UK FinTech review and aims to tackle the challenges and problems faced by the financial innovation sector.
CFIT emerged as a recommendation by Ron Khalifa, who identified the need for an entity that can independently address the complex issues faced by the FinTech industry, bring together industry voices, and work closely with government and regulators. CFIT has received seed funding from the UK Treasury and the City of London Corporation to kickstart its operations.
Open finance is one of the areas CFIT is focusing on in its efforts to promote financial innovation. Open finance aims to open up data in financial services to create better outcomes for consumers and businesses.
Following the success of open banking in the UK, open finance is a natural progression that expands beyond bank accounts to include data from a wide range of financial services. The goal is to leverage data sharing to offer improved savings rates, switching opportunities, and access to loans and mortgages that were previously unavailable. CFIT has chosen open finance as its inaugural fintech challenge and is working on developing a coalition to drive progress in this area.
Implementing open finance faces obstacles such as the complexity of legacy systems and the need for a sustainable funding model.
The integration of open finance into existing financial institutions requires significant changes to legacy systems and poses technical challenges. Additionally, determining the funding model for open finance is crucial to ensure fair and equitable participation from banks and fintechs. Current funding comes from the CMA-9, but a commercial model needs to be established to sustain the initiative's progress and incentivize data sharing without penalizing the participants. Overcoming these challenges is essential to successfully implement open finance and unlock its potential benefits for consumers and small businesses.
This week, Liz Lumley is joined by Charlotte Crosswell, chair of the Centre for Finance, Innovation, and Technology (CFIT) to talk about open finance, the goals of CFIT and how the UK can work to be a global leader in improving financial services for everyone.