“We’re excited about joining the ecosystem and delivering innovative and transparent Open Banking- enabled propositions to our customers.”
Nick Malham, Bank of Queensland
BOQ Group is one of Australia’s largest retail banks, with companies like Virgin Money Australia and ME Bank as part of their suite of brands. In early 2021, Virgin Money launched its new digital bank, including a banking app with innovative financial well-being features powered by Frollo.
Now, BOQ has partnered with Frollo to deliver an innovative, Open Banking-powered user experience to their customers across the BOQ Group.
Nick heads up BOQ’s Innovation and FinTech partnerships, which include the implementation of BOQ’s Data Recipient program.
Why is BOQ interested in becoming a Data Recipient?
We’ve seen the success from other markets where Open Banking has been implemented and some of the great use cases being developed by fintechs and banks.
Australia is at the beginning of this journey and we’re excited about joining the ecosystem and delivering innovative and transparent Open Banking-enabled propositions to our customers.
Getting accredited as soon as possible gives us the chance to test and learn beyond the foundational use cases we see developing.
Where do you see the biggest Open Banking opportunities for BOQ?
We think Open Banking brings a new level of security and transparency for our customers to more easily connect to various financial services.
We’re supportive of our customers having the most comprehensive view of their financial position at any point in time, regardless of which other banks and tools they might use to manage their money.
We think use cases will evolve from a foundation of account aggregation and unified PFM through to streamlining applications and developing new lending processes. We also see this extending beyond consumer propositions for BOQ, Virgin Money and ME and into SMEs for our Business customers in BOQ Business and BOQ Specialist.
What would be your advice to banks and fintechs who want to get started with Open Banking?
I’d encourage fintechs and banks to collaborate more to support their Open Banking journey. This will make their accreditation process easier and faster from working with partners who have deep knowledge in the space.
This frees them up to deeply understand their customer’s problems and win through building a proposition that adds real value.
For banks, I think the key is to just get started.
What are your expectations for Open Banking in the next 12 months?
I hope to see more banks and fintechs getting accredited as Data Recipients and developing new and exciting use cases for customers.
The more use cases and providers in the ecosystem, the better it will be for Australians to fully understand their financial position. They will each have access to the right tools and products they need, at the right time, to manage their money more effectively.
This interview with Nick Malham was first published in ‘The State of Open Banking 2021’, along with an industry survey and interviews with James Wyper (P&N Group), John Sanger (AFG) and Tony Carn (NextGen.Net).
Open Banking in Australia is ready for takeoff. With over 90 banks sharing data, more than 20 Accredited Data Recipients and 67% of respondents planning to use Open Banking data in the next 12 months, this is the time to get started.
