The UK is one of the leading countries in the world for open banking. Launched in the country in 2018, now, according to the JROC, “over 7 million consumers and businesses [...] are using innovative open banking enabled products and services to manage their money and to make payments”. 

Open banking is all about data sharing, innovation and collaboration. In this landscape, application programming interfaces (APIs) facilitate the seamless transfer of data between apps and platforms to the benefit of each provider involved. Open-source software allows smaller players and developers to access, modify and enhance code, driving learning and innovation in the industry. Overall, it’s an ecosystem that cultivates cooperation. 

The principles of open banking highlight how partnerships can be incredibly beneficial for financial services institutions or, indeed, anyone looking to advance their software development. Here are some benefits that show why they are a perfect fit for open banking. 

Lean on them: let partners do the complex work

Software development can be a complex and technical undertaking. While you may have some in-house skills, being able to access a team of specialised, highly-skilled developers can allow you to develop software quicker, more effectively, and in line with you business needs.

Companies can then focus their energy on core business/product needs while their partner handles the technical complexities of software development, including coding, API integrations and system architecture design. This external support is also helpful in understanding if existing systems will be compatible with new platforms and ensuring security and privacy is not breached in the implementation process. 

By handing over technical tasks to a partner, you can accelerate the time-to-market for your open banking solutions and reduce the burden on internal development teams. 

Elevated results and business operations

Partner collaborations can also give you new capabilities for your platform, helping to deliver immediate and ongoing value in an increasingly competitive market. 

For example, the world of open banking has vast amounts of data. Likewise, the digital evolution process relies on managing vast amounts of data. As a result, collaborating with partners who specialise in data management and security can be a major help in effectively scaling your product and maximising its impact. You might want to focus on enhancing your user experience and product interface while a partner takes ownership of security and compliance.

More broadly, partnerships offer you access to a whole range of tools and expert knowledge to support your operations. Not only this, but through a partner you could suddenly have access to a market you were previously cut off from, helping to launch your product into new regions or spaces. 

Staying relevant in an evolving world

Of course partners can be used solely for building the product and its initial implementation. But as open banking becomes more open, partners also have a key role to play in ongoing integrations, data accessibility, quality control, security requirements (for code and APIs) and scalability challenges. 

In this network of open sharing and exchanges, interoperability underscores the whole process. The same JROC report revealed that in 2022 there were over 68 million open banking payments and more than a billion successful API calls a month. 

To ensure ongoing compatibility, developers need to create secure and interoperable APIs that can function effortlessly with different systems — this means that third-party providers, whether they are a digital banking app or a traditional banking institution, can access and share data through the same link. 

On top of this, the huge amount of transactions taking place means that an adaptable and scalable architecture is paramount, allowing the system to manage any spikes in traffic, adjust to user demand and facilitate future growth. This continual adaptation and scalability of systems is a significant reason as to why open banking has been so successful. 

A collaborative partner hub

The fintech and open banking landscape is full of successful partnerships. Leading financial infrastructure platform Stripe, which helps companies unify payments through a single integration, is a prime example of building thriving partner ecosystems. 

Stripe has a whole partner network of technology providers, software services/consultancies and apps. Its clients can connect with any of these partners to get the most out of the Stripe platform to achieve their business goals. Results from companies harnessing this ecosystem include a 16% uplift in conversion rates and 10x growth in a business market. It’s a demonstration of how organisation, platform provider and partner/consultancy can form a formidable partnership to drive innovation. 

The perfect fit

Rather than increase costs, use of time and resources, striking up the right partnership can do quite the opposite. It allows you to focus on your business imperatives while your partner carries out complex software development tasks. Overall, they work towards enhancing business efficiency, ensuring software security, quality and scalability, and driving digital evolution. 

Open banking is a perfect example of how partnerships and collaboration can advance innovation, not obstruct it. In an increasingly interconnected world also grappling with a software skills shortage, they are fundamental to helping companies leverage these skills and ultimately hit their business goals. 

In this respect, not only are partnerships the perfect fit for the growing world of open banking, but for the software industry as a whole.