UK banks HSBC and Barclays have railed against Open Banking reforms which they say have led to much higher costs than previously estimated.

The government says that Open Banking aims to place competitive pressure on the larger, established banks who have accounted for over 80 per cent of the current account market for many years.

Under the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) rules, banks must share customer data with rivals, including smaller financial institutions, in order to boost competition. The watchdog has recently launched a consultation about the future of Open Banking and the governance around it.

“The spend on implementing the Open Banking remedy to date has been significantly higher than the amounts foreseen and taken into account by the CMA in its original 2016 assessment,” Barclays told The Telegraph.

The British bank also claimed that the changes had taken between five and six years, despite the regulator informing them costs would be spread across just two years.

HSBC also called for a shake-up of the regulation and said that larger banks should be able to “encourage cost discipline that has not existed to date”.

UK Finance, which represents over 300 firms in the industry, found that the UK’s nine largest banks were asked to put forward £26 million for the promotion of Open Banking reforms this year.

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