In this episode of the Beyond Now Podcast, we sit down with Product Manager, Lawrence Byers to chat about the latest developments in Open Banking and how innovative technology is revolutionising the way we make payments.
Listen to hear more about key topics, including confirmation of payment, banking API performance and overall user adoption. We also deep dive into how Open Banking can support merchants in achieving faster settlement and reducing costs.
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Don’t have time to listen to the full podcast? Here’s everything you need to know…
Banking API Performance: There needs to be more conversation around the performance of Open banking APIs – banks often don’t have enough incentive or desire to improve these APIs as they currently don’t generate any revenue for the banks. To achieve long-term ambitions with Open Banking in the UK, it’s important to create an ecosystem in which all the players have the incentive and motivation to create something that’s valuable for customers.
Confirmation of Payment: Consumers demand a seamless experience when engaging with products and services. If we want to improve consumer adoption then we must improve Open Banking to solve the issues consumers face during the checkout process with other payment methods.
One improvement we’re currently seeing is many PISPs are now partnering with payment providers to provide dedicated settlement accounts for Open Banking. Using dedicated settlement accounts provides merchants with notification that their funds have been settled into their account, as well as informing consumers that their payment has been accepted.
Refund Experience: With dedicated settlement accounts, the refund experience for the consumer is much more slick and streamlined. Instead of requesting the consumer’s account number and sort code for a refund, merchants using dedicated settlement accounts will be able to reconcile funds to the Open Banking payment and have visibility of the underlying customer details, allowing them to execute the refund via faster payment easily and quickly.
Open Banking vs Other Payment Methods: We’re already seeing that Open banking provides an accelerated checkout experience in comparison to traditional card payments in terms of less manual data entry. In time, we predict that Open banking will get to a point where it can challenge speedier forms of payment like Apple Pay, Google Pay and other wallets. But it’s vital to recognise that any innovation in the payments landscape takes time and adoption of these new technologies can be slow.
Fraud and Open Banking: Confirmation of payee has been an important development for tackling fraud – last year alone the industry saw close to 200,00 instances of APP (Authorised Push Payment) fraud. However, recent changes surrounding banks’ shared liability for fraudulent payments could have a negative impact on the cost of Open Banking payments, with transactions over a certain value being declined immediately.
