What is Open Banking?
Open banking is a way for you to give us secure and limited access to your bank transaction data. Essentially it is a digital bank statement that we will use to help assess your loan application.
Open Banking data allows us to process loan applications and assess affordability much faster! Making an application that could have taken days to process to take hours, or in some cases, just minutes.
Is open banking safe?
Open banking is one of the safest ways to share your financial data.
As a consumer, you control:
- what information is shared
- who you allow to access your information
- for how long they will have that access
You never have to give your password or login details to any organisation.
Open banking providers in the UK:
- are fully regulated by the FCA
- can only access your account if you have given your explicit consent
- must only access the data specifically consented to
- do not store your banking credentials, making open banking inherently more secure than credit or debit card payments.
How does open banking work?
During your application we'll ask you to 'authorise online access' to your Open Banking data.
After selecting to authorise online access you will be taken to our Open Banking portal, where you will be told what information you will be sharing with us, how this is done and who helps us do this.
At any time you will be able to cancel this process and withdraw consent.
After you click to allow you'll be able to select your banking provider and connect your data. Your bank will ask you to log into your account and to select which accounts you wish to share with us.
We kindly ask that you connect each bank accounts you have with each provider.
For example if you have a current account with NatWest, and a current account and savings account with Halifax, we ask that you connect all three account by logging into each provider and selecting each account.
Again, at any time you can cancel this process or withdraw your consent. This is a fully secure process and you are in control at all times.
Why you should use Open Banking
The 4 main reasons are:
- it's fast
- it's easy
- it's secure
- it's better for the environment
Open Banking data allows us to make faster, more accurate and fairer decisions on your loan application.
Were we to use paper statements the loan application process can take significantly longer, even if you were able to bring bank statements into the branch on the same day of application, the process can take days.
Open Banking allows us to process loan applications much faster, in some cases just minutes.