Our submission to open banking inquiry lodged

An open banking regime is key to giving consumers greater access to and power over their data, empowering them with more choice, greater understanding of their financial standing and more control over their financial futures.It is also vital to supporting greater fintech innovation - which creates increased competition, greater choice, more efficient delivery and lower price of financial services for consumers.FinTech Australia has been a consistent advocate for policy reform to drive the implementation of an open banking (also known as open financial data) framework in Australia before the end of 2018.From our very first policy reform recommendation paper to Federal Treasury in February 2016, which saw the launch of the Federal Treasurers Backing Australian Fintech initiative, and through our two submissions to the Productivity Commissions subsequent inquiry into Data Availability and Use, we have continuously advocated that the government mandate the development and implementation of a standardised open banking model to put customers in control of their data.The Australian Government has commissioned an independent review to recommend the best approach to implement the open banking regime in Australia.In August 2017, the review released an issues paperon the open banking initiative.This is our submission to this issues paper.