Speaking on The Payment Expert Podcast, Andrew Self, Head of Department for Open Banking and Open Finance at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), set out where the UK's open banking and open finance regime is heading - and where the gaps still sit.
Three things stand out.
HM Treasury is granting the FCA new statutory powers over open banking this year, with a consultation on the long-term regulatory framework expected before year end. As Self put it, the goal is to move from "a limited competition remedy based regime into one that is a comprehensive long-term regulatory framework" - consolidating the existing Payment Services Regulations and CMA Order under a single lead regulator, with clearer roles for every actor across the ecosystem.
This is the pattern Invela has been tracking across every open finance market it operates in: regulation has grown up jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and data now moves faster than any single regulator's remit. A durable framework closes some of that gap - but a framework sets the rules. It doesn't, by itself, monitor whether participants are meeting them in real time.
Self was direct about where the FCA has had to intervene. The regulator pushed back on the pricing approach put forward by the UK Payments Initiative (UKPI) for commercial variable recurring payments (cVRPs) earlier this year, using its competition powers to create room for an industry-led outcome. The long-term framework is designed to reduce how often that kind of intervention is needed - replacing regulatory improvisation with a stable footing firms can build commercial models on.
Reliability is the other open item. API success rates are now running at around 99.5%, which Self called "a good foundation" - but error messaging and interoperability remain weaknesses the industry's own Strategic Working Groups flagged back in February 2023. The FCA is pointing to a future entity as the long-term standard-setter that can close this out.
The open finance roadmap published in April sets out a staged path: 2026 is about co-creating a credible regulatory framework with industry; by year three, new rules and the first live open finance schemes; by year five, market outcomes at scale. Mortgages and SME financing were confirmed as the two priority use cases to come out of last year's open finance sprint, with the FCA's PRISM task force (Prioritisation of Real-world Insight Selection Matrix) now working through what comes next.
Self was candid that open finance will face the same core questions open banking did: right of access, commercial model, and regulatory mandate. His view is that lessons learned - and the credibility built through open banking's rapid progress over the past year - put the UK in a stronger position to move quickly this time.
Where this leaves the ecosystem
A long-term framework, a future entity, and a staged roadmap to 2030 are exactly the kind of structural clarity open finance has needed. But structure answers ‘who sets the rules’. It doesn't answer ‘who's accountable when something goes wrong’ - particularly as data starts moving through mortgages, pensions, and lending, sectors with a very different risk profile to payments.
That's the layer Invela is built for: accrediting who's participating in the network, monitoring risk continuously rather than at a point in time, and making sure liability lands in the right place when it doesn't. As the UK moves from vision to delivery, the institutions that get ahead won't just be the ones ready for the new rules - they'll be the ones who can already show, continuously, that they meet them.
---
Listen to the full episode, "The FCA on giving open banking a lasting framework,"
