Open Banking is one of the biggest global trends in financial services. We believe our country has got all it takes to be leading innovation in this field.
In June 2020, a bid led by FinTech Scotland, The University of Edinburgh and FDATA was successful and the initiative awarded £22.5m by UK Research & Innovation.
What is Open Banking?
On 13th January 2018, the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) came into force, giving third party access to payments data into the scope of regulation in the EU for the first time. This is a major change in the industry, one that will certainly generate a lot more innovation.
Open Banking is the UK version of PSD2 and in many ways is a lot more advanced. It doesn’t stop at requiring financial institutions to share payments data but also created a set of standards to make innovation easier and transferable internationally.
Why is Scotland leading Open Banking?
Funding Strength
The Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence has been backed by a £22.5 million grant from the Strength in Places Fund, provided by the UK Research & Innovation fund.
The centre is already starting to secure match funding from the Scottish Government’s chief data officer and chief economic advisors, as well as from the European Union’s Climate Finance Green Recovery Programme.
World Class Systems
Data used by the Centre will be held by the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC), which has been at the forefront of advanced supercomputing technology and is already used by the Public Health Scotland National Safe Haven and the Edinburgh International Data Facility.
What is the Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence
The centre will comprise of:
A global economic observatory to create new insights and new policies
A sandpit offering access to data and insights to universities, NGOs and charities
Capabilities to test policy interventions on live data to predict impact
Unrivalled capabilities to help entrepreneurs develop new solutions
Do you want to join the team?
The Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence is recruiting
Interim Proposition lead, Economic Crime Research Unit
Interim Proposition lead, Consumer Data Protection Unit
Interim Techical Programme lead, Innovation Sandbox
Data Governance and Security Lead
Interim Head of Technical Delivery
