A “lack of internal alignment” risks holding banks back from realising their Open Banking potential, according to YouGov research commissioned by Open Banking platform Tink.

The survey covering 300 financial executives from 12 European countries, revealed notable differences in how the Open Banking opportunity is perceived throughout financial institutions, and diverging views on capabilities and skills across different parts of the business.

“This organisational divide reflects the sheer size and scale of the task banks are facing to transform their operations to become Open Banking-ready and meet new customer needs,” said Tink.

Over two-thirds (70 per cent) of the C-suite see the opportunity that Open Banking presents right across their organisation. They also believe it provides “good value for money” with a similar percentage (67 per cent) believing the benefits outweigh the potential costs.

Most channel owners (63 per cent), responsible for the online, mobile or developer interfaces, also recognise the opportunity across their organisation, but less than half (45 per cent) of product owners feel the same way.

The majority (59 per cent) of respondents in financial institutions are positive about having the talent available within the organisation to execute on Open Banking objectives.

Those who work in IT are the most confident (65 per cent) they have the skills to deliver, followed by groups working with management (61 per cent) and digital or mobile banking channels (60 per cent). However, only 43 per cent of product owners are confident their team has the required resources to capitalise.

This might explain a lack of agreement on whether products and services being offered to customers are taking full advantage of the organisation’s Open Banking capabilities, said Tink.

The majority of those within the IT department (67 per cent) said they believe Open Banking capabilities are being leveraged in this way. This is in stark contrast to under a third (32 per cent) of executives in the digital and mobile banking department who feel the same way.

Rafael Plantier, UK and Ireland country manager at Tink, said: “Whilst fast-growing challengers in the industry continue to make moves, banks remain in the best position to offer integrated Open Banking services. As custodians of money and providers of financial services they already have a solid foundation of customers that trust them and are therefore willing to share data.

“However, we should not underestimate the enormity of the task that financial institutions face in transforming their operations to become Open Banking-ready. It is to be expected that there are differing levels of buy-in across the organisation and pockets of the business that may lag behind in embracing the opportunity."

He said strategic FinTech partnerships, acquisitions or internal re-alignment could be used to ensure banks are “well placed in the race”.

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