The Tax Incentivised Savings Association (TISA) is set to launch a workshop this week around an Open Asset Management initiative to follow in the footsteps of Open Banking in the UK.

TISA’s director general David Dalton-Brown revealed the plans in a speech a London FinTech Week yesterday afternoon, explaining that the project came in response to complaints from members that solutions were required in the same vein as the TISA Exchange (TEX) electronic transfer service.

“Following on from Open Banking, Open Asset Management would be designed to put customers in control of their data, providing an easier way to move, manage and make more of their investments,” read Dalton-Brown’s accompanying slides.

The current problem is that delivering new digital systems for customers has to happen through disparate systems which lack common standards, causing significant costs, friction and security issues, according to Dalton-Brown.

“If the asset management industry is to move forward and enable its customers to benefit from low cost digital services and the opportunities on new data-driven customer solutions, then we need a new set of open standards and associated APIs that open up the legacy systems and infrastructure to FinTech challengers,” he added.

Explaining his work towards open industry standards and digital IDs, Dalton-Brown said there has been “huge resistance” historically from financial services incumbents to open up their data, due to concerns about losing clients to more agile competition.

He noted that it took the regulator to enforce Open Banking, rather than any voluntary action from the big banks, but did add that it was often “not a lack of willingness, but a lack of resources” that prevented them from opening up.

On digital IDs, Dalton-Brown said that after the initial phase found a “huge amount” of consumer demand, TISA was moving to a live pilot with 10 major financial services firms. A full roll-out plan should be published at the end of this year, in collaboration with the government’s existing Verify project.

“We’ve just had two ministers resign over Brexit, so UK PLC is stuttering at the moment, but things like this could be a significant advantage,” he added.

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