Technological Enabler

The OPEN BANK PROJECT is a technological ‘enabler’. Its API will supply many different software applications, platforms, tools and systems that wish to read and write transaction data. The following scenarios serve to illustrate the depth of possibilities that the project opens up.

Fraud detection

A major company decides it wants to run near-realtime fraud detection software from two different vendors across many accounts held on different banks in several countries. The company’s choice of potential software is significantly increased because the OBP protocol is standard and the API is open sourced. Because the potential market is large, vendors are encouraged to develop tools and make their own contributions to the development of the OBP API.

Individuals make payments from a wider choice of software

Private users can use a choice of software applications (web, mobile, desktop) from different vendors to interact with their bank account(s) - instead of being restricted to only use applications provided by their bank. They can even access accounts from different banks in one application.

Public access to (EU) funded project transactions

The EU (or other public body) decides it wants better, faster and more transparent monitoring of funded projects. It insists that EU funds go into OBP enabled accounts and that payments out of the account above a certain threshold must also go to OBP enabled accounts. This results in a ‘network’ of payments that may be analyzed by expert tools at the EU and/or the public.

A business can access its bank accounts with a greater range of tools

A small company wants its core team to have access to the company bank accounts from their smart phones, accounting software and intranet pages. They “OBP enable” their company bank accounts and give the OAuth keys to their in-house IT staff who can enable the required applications. The staff can use a variety of software applications from different vendors to access the company accounts.

Social Commenting

An individual shares financial information with a selected group (friends/spouse). The OBP protocol enables secure retrieval of data into a social platform widget. This application is good for spreading the concept and has viral adoption potential.

Vertical market comparison

A consumer association web portal aggregates, displays and analyses data from many public bodies simultaneously. The OBP allows retrieval of data in near-real-time. Consumers may compare and contrast value for money. One adopting utility may cause another to follow suit thus raising the bar of accountability.

Charities open their transactions to the public

A charity wants to promote itself as transparent and engage its donors by showing its income and expenditure on social platforms and web sites. This results in greater dialogue between donors and the receiving organisations, increased visibility and accountability.

Banks emerge where all accounts are open

New banks are created where all accounts support the OBP Protocol. The OBP allows for the creation of a community of account holders supporting transparency of transactions. This could cause a quantum shift in societies attitude towards money: A community of private and business account holders and the public forms. They can follow and comment on transactions and make recommendations. Banks and suppliers benefit from having their logos next to transactions. The public could browse, follow and discover good deals and spot irregularities.

Full financial service access via the OBP API

The OBP API provides a trusted, secure and low cost platform against which payment intensive services such as Mobile Payment gateways or Micro Finance platforms can be developed. The API exposes a full set of banking commands (“verbs”) to the organisation. This enables the organisation to fully integrate its systems with their Bank. More and more small enterprises are willing to offer mobile payment for their customers, and the demand to integrate their mobile payment (m-payment) gateways to banking systems is increasing.