Australia: Big Four to launch Open Banking pilot from July

Australia’s Customer Data Right (CDR) legislation is expected to pass in the first quarter of 2019 and from July 1 the big four banks will be required to publicly share product data about credit and debit cards, deposit accounts and transaction accounts.

However, the banks now have until February 2020 to share the first tranche of consumer data, according to a revised timeline released by Treasury prior to Christmas.

The Consumer Data Right is a competition and consumer reform announced by the Australian Government in May 2018. The banking sector will be the first to implement the CDR —  where it will be known as open banking — followed by the energy and telecommunications sectors.

Essentially a data portability right, the CDR will allow consumers to direct institutions to share their data, making it easier to compare services and switch providers.

Rather than a hard start date, the ACCC and Data 61 will launch a pilot program with the big four banks to test the performance, reliability and security of the open banking system from July 1, 2019.

Consumers and fintechs will also be invited to participate in these pilots and from July 1 the ACCC will begin formally engaging with parties interested in accreditation.

Once the ACCC is comfortable with the robustness of the system, banks will publicly share consumer data about credit and debit cards, deposit accounts and transaction accounts, which will be no later than February 1, 2020.

Product and consumer data for mortgage accounts will be made available on February 1, 2020, per the original timeline.

Priot to Christmas, the ACCC also published the Rules Outline for the new CDR which details the principles open banking participants will need to follow.

“This is an important step towards making the Consumer Data Right a reality. The Consumer Data Right will initially apply to banking data, giving consumers and small businesses the choice to securely share data with trusted third parties,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said.

“We expect the Consumer Data Right to open up a range of innovative and cheaper financial services to consumers because it will overcome some of the problems caused by the lack of transparency around current market offers and the concentration of consumer banking data in the hands of the banks.

“The rules outline will offer certainty to data holders and potential data recipients so they can continue to develop the reliable and secure systems and new product offerings ahead of the start of the CDR regime,” Court said.