Green lights for open banking

The new wave of open banking takes a step forward this week with the release of two Commerce Commission decisionsThe Commerce Commission is set to make two big announcements this week, which are expected to result in a big leap forward for open banking.There's also a piece of legislation going through parliamentary processes at the moment that will lay the foundation for open banking to take off in New Zealand.Today on The Detail we try to cut through the jargon to explain what it is, how it will work, and who will benefit most.To some, it is a new and scary concept - allowing third parties to have access to your banking details - but internationally it's been around for nearly a decade, and we're actually already doing it. The problem is, the way we're currently doing it is not completely secure, and banks hate it.BusinessDesk technology editor Ben Moore says historically our open banking has been done via a process called 'screen scraping'. If you've ever used POLi payments, for example to pay a road toll on the NZTA website, you've done that."You give a company your credentials to your bank account, they log into your bank account with some software, it goes in, sees what it needs to, does what it needs to, and then logs out."It's not the most secure way of doing things," [because you are giving them your banking password], "and banks don't really like it very much. They say it's a breach of their terms and services."It's about giving consumers back the right to share their own data that's held within organisations like banks."At the moment that power is in the hands of those banks, so it's a fundamental change in the concept of who holds your data.So how does it work?The big banks have had to spend a great deal of money to upgrade their legacy security systems so that they can create what Moore calls a "bolt-on tunnel connector", or bridge, which is called an Application Programming Interface (API) - an interface between computer programmes.That's so data can be shared.New legislation has been designed to ensure the API is highly secure and standardised across all the banks.That enables third parties, usually fintec companies, to offer their services, whether they be mortgage broking or budgeting services, or online payment services. They can't just reach in and grab your information - you have to give them permission…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details