Open banking in the UK

The Competition and Markets Authority published the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order in February 2017. It set the timetable for open banking at the nine largest current account banks, known as the CMA9. The banks funded an implementation entity that wrote one common API standard, and its successor, Open Banking Limited, still maintains it.

PSD2 applied in the UK at the same time and still shapes its payment services rules, so a UK provider is an account information or payment initiation provider as in the EU. The difference is the standard. In the EU each bank chooses how to build its interface, mostly on the Berlin Group standard. In the UK the largest banks had to implement one specification and pass its conformance tests.

Open Banking Limited reported on July 28, 2026 that the UK system had passed one billion payments and 100 billion API calls across the CMA9 since launch. In June 2026 alone it counted 2.81 billion API calls and 40.16 million payments, with variable recurring payments up 6.7 percent on the month.

Most of these payments are single domestic transfers started by a payment initiation provider, the UK form of account-to-account payments. They run over Faster Payments, the UK instant payment system, so the merchant receives the money within seconds and pays no card scheme fee.

Variable recurring payments let a provider pull changing amounts under one consent. Open Banking Limited sets the standards for sweeping VRPs, which move money between a customer's own accounts, and the UK Payments Initiative runs the commercial VRP scheme for payments to merchants. The European counterpart and its state are on variable recurring payments.

Oversight has changed. The Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee has been wound down, and under the government's National Payments Vision the FCA leads the further development of open banking. In its feedback statement FS25/4 the FCA describes a future entity as the main standard-setting body for UK open banking APIs, without enforcement powers of its own. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has received Royal Assent; the future entity still depends on further legislation.

The UK model shows what an order and a single standard deliver: one integration per provider and published performance figures. The EU model leaves more to the market. PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation tighten the rules for bank interfaces, and the voluntary SPAA scheme prices premium APIs, where the UK competition authority ordered its largest banks to deliver.

The UK route toward open finance, including the FCA feedback statement of 2021, is described on open finance.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for people who build and supervise open banking in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

Finance Loop is a strategic partner of the Digital Euro Association, whose Digital Euro Conference in Frankfurt covers digital money infrastructure next to open banking, and it supports When Banks Say 'No', a Frankfurt seminar on payments under sanctions and de-risking.

Open banking in the UK is the system that lets regulated providers read a customer's bank account data or start a payment from it, with consent, over standard APIs. The Competition and Markets Authority ordered the nine largest banks to build it, and Open Banking Limited maintains the standard.

It rests on the same roles, account information and payment initiation, which came from PSD2. The UK added a competition order, a single API standard with conformance tests and its own scheme for variable recurring payments.

The Financial Conduct Authority authorizes the providers and, since the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee was wound down, leads the further development of open banking. A future standard-setting entity is planned, subject to legislation.