Open Finance
EU Financial Data Access framework expanding the European Financial Data Space
Overview
The Open Finance policy aims at expanding the EU Financial Data Space building on the EU Data Strategy and its Digital Finance Strategy. Open finance should form an integral part of the European financial data space, along with data contained in public disclosures of firms as well as supervisory data, all under the umbrella of fostering the EU Capital Markets Union.
Key Points of the Open Finance strategy:
- 1
Promoting financial data access and sharing: The Financial Data Access regulation wants to rationalize the way financial data can be accessed and shared from data holders by data users, based on customer consent. It will set up a framework for financial data access together with some technical permission dashboards and subsequent supervisory oversight.
- 2
Consolidation of access to company information: The European Single Access Point regulation aims at consolidating online access to the financial and sustainability-related data of companies that access the Capital Markets Union.
- 3
Broadening and digitalisation of financial services: The revision of the Payments Services Directive and the establishment of a Payment Services Regulation want to enable alternative payment models to thrive in the EU and to also rationalize the use and access of cryptocurrencies and new digital financial services.
Why is it important?
Open finance policies will enable a greater access to financial information and will unlock access to information currently held in closed environment with a view to enable more personalized and diverse services, all based on user consent and management.
FEBIS Position
Business information providers support the development of the European Financial Data Space and Business Information providers support the development of the European Financial Data Space and welcome the will to enable better data access and sharing possibilities. FEBIS and its members, as data users, support the will to promote a better access to data based on legitimate interests and coherent data protection.
The roles of the different actors should also be clearly established, with the aim of putting in place a fair-level playing field where both public and private players can have thriving business models that enable a better data access and sharing. This should also be done in coherence with other existing horizontal and sector legislation such as the Open Data and PSI policies.
The question of sole traders remains very important and FEBIS is strongly recommending a clarification based on the capacity under which a natural person interacts with the creditors / financial institutions and to consider that natural persons acting in business capacity should be considered equal to legal persons in all relevant legislation. It is the capacity in which an individual interacts, which should be considered i.e. private for private capacity, and available for re-use for legitimate purposes for business capacity.
Key Dates
19 February 2020
EU Data Strategy published (COM(2020) 66)
28 June 2023
FIDA (Financial Data Access) legislative proposal published by the Commission
10 July 2027
ESAP opens to the public (collection bodies submit data from July 2026)