New research has revealed that 86 per cent of global banks are looking to use open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in the next 12 months.

Finasta surveyed 774 financial institutions and banks across the UK, US, Singapore, France, Germany, Hong Kong and UAE, finding that 30 per cent believe Open Banking is already making a tangible impact in delivering improved overall customer experience.

This comes against a backdrop where regulation is perceived to be tighter than when the firm carried out a similar survey a year ago and close to half (48 per cent) of those audited believe that regulators are holding back innovation. This sentiment was higher in Hong Kong (62 per cent), France (50 per cent) and Singapore (49 per cent) than in the UK (38 per cent).

A further 83 per cent of financial institutions and banks agreed that regulations regarding FinTech innovation should be harmonised across different geographies.

The research, which was conducted in January, prior to the Coronavirus outbreak, showed that the percentage of financial institutions looking to leverage open APIs has substantially increased in the US (up 23%) and UK (up 17%).

Overall, 41 per cent of global banks said that they are ‘still in the early stages of adoption’, making it difficult to measure the impact of Open Banking on their business so far, according to Finastra.

Chief executive Simon Paris said: “It’s encouraging to see Open Banking maturing on a global scale, but it’s still seen by many to be in its teenage years, with scope for creating even greater opportunities.”

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