In March 2025, we ran a 2-day sprint bringing together experts to explore the key foundations needed for open finance and data-driven financial services.
The sprint brought together over 100 stakeholders including regulators, financial firms, fintechs, technology providers and consumer organisations – to move beyond ideas and explore practical foundations for open finance.
The core question under discussion was: what building blocks are needed to enable open finance in a way that supports consumers’ and businesses’ needs while preserving trust, resilience and inclusivity?
Participants examined 4 core opportunity areas:
- Financial wellbeing.
- Financial growth.
- Financial resilience.
- Digital identity and verification.
Discussions considered:
- Data portability and standardisation.
- Interoperability.
- Transparent consent.
- Robust frameworks for trust and accountability.
Participants also explored:
- How advanced technologies, including AI and agentic systems, can help to personalise services
- How cross-sector collaboration can speed up practical implementation.
Outcomes
Our outcomes report summarises the work produced by sprint participants. It sets out a shared picture of how an open finance ecosystem could develop over time, grounded in trusted data use, clear consent, secure technology and broad participation. It reflects participant outputs, not FCA policy positions.
Participants described an open finance environment that is more open, secure and personalised, with services shaped around the needs of consumers and businesses. They emphasised the role of clear data rights, transparent consent, and an ecosystem capable of supporting secure data-sharing across multiple sectors.
Read the outcomes report (PDF)
According to participants, the following are foundational elements for open finance.
Data
Data must be available, portable and standardised across sectors, including transactions, savings, investments and credit records.
Clear provenance and traceability are important to build trust, support accountable data use and enable innovation.
To improve decisions and outcomes, it can be helpful to combine financial and non-financial data, such as property, energy or company information.
Technology and infrastructure
Core components are:
- Common API standards.
- Transparent consent mechanisms.
- Frameworks for trust and accountability.
For more responsive and tailored products and services, there’s a role for cloud infrastructure, digital identity and verification, and AI-supported analysis, including agentic AI.
Ecosystem of stakeholders
Delivering open finance depends on participation from financial firms, technology providers, regulators, consumer groups, businesses and non-financial data holders.
It’s important to have:
- Cross-sector cooperation.
- Public–private collaboration.
- Implementation support, including testing environments such as sandboxes.
Commercial models
Commercial models need to be sustainable and inclusive. These would allow value to be shared across the ecosystem, provide incentives for participation, and ensure that data is used ethically and in ways that support consumers and businesses.
Some participants noted mandatory participation as a possible enabler for widely used consumer services.
Opportunities
Participants raised the following areas of opportunity:
Financial wellbeing
Examples included personalised credit assessments, consolidated debt tools, financial dashboards and AI-supported budgeting, drawing on credit histories, savings, pensions, investments and transaction information, considering income or payroll data where relevant.
Financial growth
Ideas included life-event planning tools, early risk detection, and services that support saving and investment.
For SMEs, key datasets included accounting and tax information, forecasts and operational records.
Financial resilience
Opportunities included AI-driven alerts and guidance to help users manage cash flow, budgeting, or debt during financial shocks or changes in circumstances.
Digital identity and verification
Participants highlighted secure, reusable digital identities, consent dashboards and verification processes that could underpin safe, interoperable access to open finance services.
Next steps
We have launched the Smart Data Accelerator to test high-impact use cases and support agile, evidence-based policy development.
We’re also taking forward insights through our SME finance and Mortgages TechSprints, running to February 2026, and will share outputs once these are complete.
Ongoing collaboration across sectors and internationally will continue to inform the UK’s approach to open finance and the wider smart data economy.
We’ll also carry out more work on the technology and infrastructure layer of open finance, focusing on architecture, interoperability and the systems needed to support trusted data sharing.
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