Open banking is a modern concept wherein third parties are provided access to the customer data by the banks and financial institutions: Opening a Bank Account Dissertation, UCC, Ireland

Introduction

Open banking is a modern concept wherein third parties are provided access to the customer data by the banks and financial institutions, in open banking, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are used to enable real-time communication of data between banks and trusted third parties.

It is an area of interest, as open banking along with providing various benefits to the customers, also will have a significant impact on the accounting profession. With the use of Open APIs, customers would be able to get access to their financial information on a real-time basis, without the accountant having to provide the consolidated information.

The accounting profession would undergo a significant change, accountants can now act as advisors for the clients, advising them as to how the information being communicated by the open banking application can be used by the clients to take financial decisions.

Furthermore, open banking would also bring a high degree of automation to the accountant’s task, they no longer need to extract the account statements of various accounts and enter the transactions manually and they can simply extract the reports from the APIs and import them into the accounting software.

Background of research

Open banking is an emerging field, which is helping the customers as well as banks in multiple ways, customers are able to get access to their financial information faster than before, as it collates the financial information from all sources and presents it at once place. For banks, it helps them in providing better and customized services to their customers, as banks get access to the entire financial information of the consumer, they are able to better understand the requirement of the consumer and offer them the product according to their needs.