Fontier’s chairman Gus O’Donnell joined Antti Lemberg, Laura Petschnig and Phil Sneade, members of our financial services team, speaking at the “Open Banking – what does it really mean?” conference in London today.

The conference, hosted by City & Financial Global, brought together experts from banks, fintechs, regulators and government with diverse perspectives to debate best-practice in Open Banking, and how banks and fintechs can work together to attract consumers and generate revenue and profits.

Gus O’Donnell chaired the conference. Antti Lemberg and Laura Petschnig gave a presentation that took stock of the relative progress of Open Banking across Europe, focusing on the different ways in which the Open Banking landscape is evolving as incumbent banks and new entrants are seeking to attract customers and create value.

Phil Sneade moderated a panel exploring whether Open Banking will do enough for the financially vulnerable. The panel described how Open Banking has the potential to help vulnerable customers by enabling new products and services, but that this is not guaranteed: there is a risk that vulnerable customers could be left worse off. To address this, strengthened government and regulatory oversight will be required.

The conclusion of a lively debate at the conference was that it will be essential for existing providers and new entrants alike to better understand their customers in order to design strategies to respond to PSD2 and to monitor their success as implementation gathers pace.

Frontier regularly advises clients across Europe on behavioural economics in the financial services and retail markets, focusing on banking regulation and commercial strategy.

For more information please contact media@frontier-economics.com, or call +44 (0)20 7031 7000