Over the past few months, we have been looking at the seeming paradox developing with regard to Open Banking. On the one hand, there appears to be a firm commitment by all players in the sector to embrace Open Banking, regardless of their size, technological capacity or levels of innovation. On the other hand, there is an acute awareness that the market simply is not prepared enough. But regardless of whether the cautious approach is the right one or not, one thing is for sure: the moment the Open Banking ‘wave’ arrives, there will be no going back and things will move at a tremendous speed.
On this very matter, a recent report by Accenture, ‘
Catching the Open Banking wave’, warns that a wave of changes is on its way as the various initiatives and regulations start to mature. We are now facing the creation of not a financial economy, but an “open data” economy with financial implications for users and customers. According to the authors, “The super app will be here before you know it”.
What is a super app? According to Accenture, a super app is a platform or ecosystem that “does everything, or almost everything”. In most cases, it is a massive market of offers made possible by three things: digital technology, big data and third-party integration. They cite WeChat and Alipay as examples and highlight that PayPal and Klarna are taking similar steps towards building ecosystems that integrate features like mobile payments, shopping, investing, savings, budgeting and crypto-capabilities.