Two years ago, Ana, who runs a small appliance distributor in São Paulo, was turning away orders she couldn’t finance. Traditional underwriting looked at thin collateral and a patchy bureau file. Then her bank asked for consented API access to her receivables, payouts, and tax invoices. Within hours, not weeks, Ana had a revolving line priced on real cash-flow, not assumptions. She used it to smooth inventory cycles, added a new supplier, and doubled online sales within a quarter.
Stories like Ana’s are no longer edge cases. They are what happens when interoperable data rails meet clear liability rules and tested resilience. That’s the core message of our new report, Open Finance: Unleashing the Next Wave of Financial Innovation.
What we see in the data (as of Aug 2025) is both scale and direction: the UK counts 7.9% of Faster Payments; Brazil has surpassed 30 million active consents across banking, credit, insurance, and investments; India’s Account Aggregator rails now support ~1.2 billion API calls each quarter. But the more important insight is why some markets out-perform: where common APIs and data taxonomies are mandated, accreditation is proportional, and third-party dependencies are supervised with real testing, adoption compounds and value creation shows up in the P&L—lower acquisition costs, faster onboarding, better risk selection, and measurable inclusion gains for thin-file households and SMEs.
Our study follows the Bank & Finance method—history → theory → data → strategy—and is designed for decision makers:
We map the regulatory typology (Mandate, Hybrid, Market-led) and explain what each implies for interoperability, liability, and cross-border scalability.
We distill a risk taxonomy aligned to FSB/DORA (cyber, privacy/consent, interoperability, concentration, systemic ops risk) into a practical checklist with early-warning indicators and mitigants.
We translate evidence into a 12–24 month playbook: for policymakers (interoperability mandates, proportional accreditation, critical third-party oversight), for financial institutions (API-first stacks, explainable analytics, resilience testing and exit plans), and for fintechs/TPPs (compliance-by-design and transparent consent UX).
The headline: Open finance is not a feature upgrade. It is a system redesign—of data rights, market plumbing, and accountability. Leaders who align technology, policy, and operating discipline will unlock growth and resilience at the same time.
If you’re shaping strategy, regulation, or product in this space, we hope this report accelerates your next move.
Download the report:
Open Finance: Unleashing the Next Wave of Financial Innovation
