Hong Kong Consumers Willing to Give Access to Financial Data
Hong Kong banks enjoy strong trust from consumers, but non-bank providers could make inroads on payments, a study from Accenture reveals. Banks need to quickly adapt.
Half of all consumers in Hong Kong are willing to let third parties access their financial data in order to get more personalized banking services and higher returns, underscoring the potential for Open Banking solutions in the Asian financial hub, according to new research from Accenture.
Open Banking allows consumers to grant technology providers, fintech, telecommunications companies, retailers and other third parties access to their financial data via open application programming interfaces (APIs), enabling consumers to compare products and services and initiate transactions more easily. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is about to launch the first phase of its open API framework on January 18 as part of its «smart banking» initiatives that also includes a faster payment system and virtual banking licenses.
Higher Returns on Savings
According to Accenture’s research, which is based on a survey of more than 2,000 consumers in Hong Kong, 51 percent of respondents said they would be willing to securely share their data with a third-party provider if doing so would get them more personalized services or tailored offers like a better mortgage rate or higher returns on savings and deposits.
At the same, only 31 percent said they would not be willing to share their data. In comparison, similar surveys that Accenture conducted in Australia and the U.K. showed that consumers in those markets were more than twice as likely to say that they would not be willing to share their financial information with third parties (66 percent and 69 percent, respectively).
Look for Opportunities
«Banks still enjoy a lot of trust from consumers, but Hong Kongers are willing to share their financial data if they know they’ll get something in return — indicating that the foundations are clearly there for Hong Kong to leapfrog many markets with Open Banking solutions,» said Fergus Gordon, a managing director at Accenture who leads its banking practice in Asia Pacific and Africa. «To strengthen their engagement with customers and benefit from consumers’ willingness to share their data with non-bank providers, banks must look for opportunities to partner with third parties to offer the types of services their customers want.»
Digital payments and wallet services that are ubiquitous in the Chinese mainland are also quickly making inroads in Hong Kong, with the number of Hong Kongers who said they use these services at least once each month more than double the number who say they never use them (69 percent vs. 31 percent).
Not surprisingly, younger consumers are more frequent users of digital wallets than older ones, with 80 percent of millennials and Gen Zers — those under the age of 35 — saying they use them at least monthly, compared with only 47 percent of baby boomers (those 55 and older).
Digitally Savvy Young Consumers
«Asia’s large population of digitally savvy young consumers with rising disposable income demands from their financial-services providers the same sort of convenience, ease-of-use and access that they’ve grown accustomed to from their favorite social media or tech platform,» said Piyush Singh, a managing director at Accenture who leads its Financial Services practice in Asia Pacific and Africa. «Banks need to quickly adapt or risk losing this future generation of consumers to startups and tech firms that ‘get’ them.»
