Time for European banks to embrace open banking business models

Open Banking is making a significant impact upon the banking industry in Europe and encouraging more players to get involved in the financial services industry. In fact, newcomers have increased their share of revenue in the past year and now represent a third of the financial sector’s total growth. This is important as Europe’s financial sector also battles against increased competition from both the West (via tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) and the East (via Chinese platforms). For European banks to stake a place for themselves going forward, it will be important that they move to the forefront of open banking and test which model(s) work best for them, be it bank-as-a-platform, bank-as-a-service or a multi-sided marketplace. At the end of the day however, it is important to remember that the bulk of revenue is found in financial products. As such, banks should be careful to manage what is “nice to have” versus is really necessary in the future of banking.