Australia’s Open Banking rules have changed in the last week, with customers now further empowered to access their own data and share that data with their broker.
Many mortgage brokers still struggle with Open Banking and how it affects them – so Australian Broker spoke to one of Australia’s leading fintechs, Frollo, to help the channel keep up to date with the shifting regulation.
“The new rules mean that brokers can get rapid access to CDR data without the need to get accredited,” explains Gareth Gumbley, CEO of Frollo.
“They can partner with an intermediary like Frollo to easily collect their customers’ income, expenses, assets and liabilities from close to 100 banks in minutes, and use it for fact finding, loan applications and ongoing proactive financial advice.”
“These new rules are aimed at increasing participation in the Consumer Data Right by businesses and consumers. By making it easier for businesses to participate we should see more use cases and greater consumer adoption.”
“This will significantly increase the number of API calls that banks are getting. To date, Frollo has made 16 million Open Banking API calls, which represents roughly 95% of the total number of API calls in the ecosystem.”
“Compare this to the UK, where the monthly total is more than 700 million API calls and you see we can expect a lot of growth.”
“Another important change is the joint accounts improvement. The new rules will make it easier for joint account holders to share their data, but it does mean the banks will have to make significant changes to how they’ve implemented data sharing for joint accounts.”
“Even with the short term pain of the banks having to change their implementations, this is a big positive for consumer participation in the Consumer Data Right.”
Consumers are the main beneficiaries of these changes, as Open Banking allows them to more readily switch between providers.
“The big win for consumers with these new rules is that they’ll be able to benefit from more competition, more innovation and better deals on their finances,” said Gumbley.
“More brokers, fintechs, lenders and other businesses will be able to offer Open Banking powered experiences that deliver better customer outcomes.”
