There is a near consensus about the critical role of open banking in Singapore, according to a recent survey, with more lenders considering opening up their application programming interfaces.
98 percent of Singapore respondents claimed that open banking was important to their organization, according to a recent report by Finastra, highlighting efficiency as a key gain (89 percent) from collaboration.
Of the 110 organizations surveyed from the city-state in the report, 86 percent have either committed to or are considering opening their APIs within the next 12 months.
More Regulatory Support Needed
Despite the open banking optimism, respondents claimed that the regulatory environment was not sufficiently favorable. 56 percent called regulations too tight while 90 percent called for «greater global harmonization of regulation on innovation». Standardizing best practices to encourage collaboration was also highlighted on the regulatory wish list by two-thirds of respondents.
«It’s encouraging to see that financial institutions are embracing the open banking model enabled by open APIs, and that collaboration is already helping so many become more efficient,» said Wissam Khoury, senior vice president and general manager, APAC and MEA at Finastra.
«It’s clear, however, that regulation needs become a facilitator rather than a barrier going forward. I’m excited to see the industry make further strides towards enabling a truly collaborative model to drive the industry forward and enable true open finance,» he said, underlining new emerging opportunities such as mobile banking and artificial intelligence.
