CFIT Announces Founding Members Of “Open Finance Coalition”
The Centre for Finance, Innovation, and Technology (CFIT) announced today the starting members of its “Open Finance Coalition.” These members will work together to show how financial data can be used to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and consumers.
Ezechi Britton MBE, the CEO of CFIT, to learn about the group’s quick mobilization, full plan, and big goals to make the UK the world’s leader in fintech.
As suggested in the Kalifa Review of UK Fintech, which came out in 2021, the Government has asked CFIT, which is run by the private sector but backed by the Government, to organize targeted fintech policies that aim to grow the sector. As described in the review, “Inclusion and Recovery” is one of CFIT’s three main areas of focus. In this area, industry-wide coalitions work on important problems like financial inclusion, SME lending, Open Finance, and Digital ID. These are meant to bring together banks, Big Tech, data providers, fintechs, and policymakers to solve the problems of scaling solutions and making economic benefits.
Britton says that the coalition’s main goal is to take control of open finance and that by doing so, we can help consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) understand and be aware of their financial situations, especially compared to other groups in the country.
He says that CFIT is working with SMEs to give them more access to and power over their data so that they can get their hands on the £1.5 trillion that is sitting in their bank accounts right now. The same thing happens to consumers.
Due to the wide range of areas and institutions that open finance needs to work well, no single organization has access to all of the companies that are needed to move forward with the work that needs to be done. So, the Centre had to put together a Coalition that included people from not only financial services but also all the other industries that use or gain from open finance. Some of the first organizations to join the Open Finance Coalition are:
The Association of British Insurers, Allen and Overy, Amazon Web Services, the City of London Corporation, Experian, EY, HSBC, IBM, Innovate Finance, iwoca, KPMG, Leeds City Council, Lloyds Banking Group, Mastercard, MBN Solutions, Monzo, Open Banking Limited, The Open Finance Association, Revolut, the Smart Data Foundry, and Zopa Bank, with help from the FCA.
“That’s the power of CFIT. We sit in an intersection between government and policy, regulation and industry,” Britton notes.
CFIT thinks that its alliances will last anywhere from 6 to 12 months, but it wants its first Open Finance Coalition to last only 6 months. Britton says that he set this tight schedule on purpose and is committed and sure that real progress will be made as soon as possible.
“If you look at what we’ve achieved, no one would have thought we would have been able to get this particular coalition of partners together and agree to participate in this activity in the timeframe that we have done. Normally you’d spend six to nine months setting up something like this, we’ve done it in two. That is the value of setting tight timeframes, otherwise, we’d be here in four years talking about the first coalition.
The reality is, innovation moves fast, fintech moves faster, and we’ve got to move faster than that.”
“The key role that CFIT plays is really innovation through collaboration. By bringing everyone together, we’re able to create a level playing field that unblocks those barriers to scale and ensures that every financial innovation-focused company can grow, scale and do what it needs to do, to really put the UK at the forefront of global fintech. We want to see the UK as the number one destination for fintech startups and scale ups.”
Britton was named CEO in February 2023, and since he started in April, he and his team have been able to put together CFIT’s first alliance in just a few short months.
“If you look at the progress from when we announced to when we launched what we’ve achieved in that time, it’s absolutely astonishing. We have spun up the organisation, built the core team, and we’re recruiting at pace now.”
Britton says that we will soon find out about new top hires.
“We’ve launched the brand, engaged with the ecosystem itself, started to bring in core partners, put the terms of reference in the governance structure around the core coalition in place. Importantly, we’ve decided on the fundamental theme of what that coalition is going to try and solve and we’ll be kicking that off next week with our first set of meetings.”
“It’s all about action, not words. We’ve spoken enough. Everyone knows what the core problems are. And frankly, everyone knows what the solutions are, but there’s never been anyone to actually lead on that. What we haven’t really had in the UK is an organisation that can really bring everyone together and deliver on solving these issues, and start to lay out that roadmap for what future innovation and collaboration looks like in this space. This is why we chose open finance as our first coalition.”
He says that open banking has already made progress with the OBE becoming the OBL and the work coming out of JROC, and that “it’s very clear that the direction of travel needs to go from open banking to open finance to open data, and we’re very much involved in that.
Fundamentally, this is about mobilising the ecosystem. It’s about creating the best outcomes for consumers and SMEs. They still want organisations to reach out to us and engage with us.
If any firm or institution was unable to participate in this first coalition, Britton encourages them to get involved for upcoming coalitions instead. Engage with us, get to know us, and let’s find a time and place where you can get around the table.
In a press release on the announcement, Andrew Griffith, MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury said:
“The UK pioneered the adoption of Open Banking, which today is used by over 7 million consumers and businesses. Our vision is to build on this success, to forge a dynamic and inclusive financial data sharing market that is fit for the future. I am thrilled that CFIT will be doing just that, as it launches its initial Open Finance coalition. This first coalition unites industry leaders and will harness the transformative potential of financial data to deliver better outcomes for consumers and SMEs in the UK.”
Jessica Rusu, executive director of Data, Technology, & Innovation, and Sheldon Mills, executive director, Consumers and Competition of the FCA, also stated:
“Supporting competition and innovation to benefit consumers and businesses is a priority for the FCA. Open Banking and Open Finance have the potential to bring transformative benefits to UK financial services and will help the UK become more competitive and innovative. As such, we are delighted to support CFIT’s first coalition. We will assist the coalition through the sharing of our regulatory knowledge and expertise and our ongoing open banking work that is being delivered through the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee.”
