Joint statement from HM Treasury, the PSR, FCA and CMA on the future oversight of Open Banking

Following the publication of ‘The future oversight of the CMA’s Open Banking remedies’, the PSR, together with HM Treasury, the FCA and CMA, have today announced the next steps in the future oversight of Open Banking. 

The joint statement published today outlines their plans for oversight of a new entity to succeed the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE). The future entity will build on the significant progress made to date by the OBIE to encourage innovation and support competition in retail banking.  

HM Treasury, the CMA, the FCA and the PSR are working together to provide a vision and propose a constitution for the future entity, ensure a smooth transition from the OBIE, and oversee the new entity once it is set up.  In particular, we expect it to: 

• Maintain and further develop the existing standards and framework.  
• Play a central role in delivering new proposals beyond those required by existing regulations, overseen by a Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee, to further support innovation and competition. 
• Be independent, well-governed and underpinned by a set of values and cultures that include an emphasis on integrity and promoting ethical behaviours, as highlighted by the CMA in its response. 
• Fairly and effectively take account of the interests of relevant industry and end-user stakeholders, including consumers and businesses. 
• Ensure it has sufficient resources to carry out its functions effectively. 
• Be able to respond and adapt to new developments as Open Banking evolves and help in developing future initiatives, including Open Finance. 

This cross-authority work will be taken forward by a new regulatory oversight committee led jointly by the FCA and PSR, with HM Treasury and the CMA as the other members. We will engage, through the Committee, with stakeholders including industry participants and end- user representatives to help in setting the strategic direction and delivering on these objectives. We will set out more detail on this in Q2 2022. 

Chris Hemsley, the PSR’s Managing Director, said: “As co-chair of the Committee, I look forward to working closely with fellow authorities, industry and key stakeholders in shaping the Future Entity. Open banking has the potential to make payments easier and quicker for everyone. Enabling account-to-account retail payments will help to unlock competition between payment systems, which is a key priority for us.”