BVI ON PROPOSALS FOR OPEN-FINANCE

On 28 June 2023, the EU Commission published proposals for an Open Finance regulation. Open Finance is the further development of Open Banking, allowing third-party providers to use customer data from banks, fund companies and insurers. Financial advisors will thus be able to tailor their recommendations even more specifically to their clients‘ individual needs. Opening up the data will also drive product innovation and competition for the best digital financial product.

Rudolf Siebel, Managing Director of the German Investment Funds Association BVI, comments:

‘To prevent distortions of competition, the EU Commission should make it even clearer that the opening up may only apply to original customer data such as transaction data, but not to data refined by the companies, such as results of suitability, and adequacy tests.’

‘All market participants should already be addressing this issue now in order to be prepared for the digital Capital Market Union as this has the potential to increasingly disrupt established sales channels. There is still some time before open finance products and services can be used by customers, because many technical and legal issues must first be clarified. These include the organization of customer approvals, the approval of data users, and the establishment of contractual standards and technical interfaces. Regarding interfaces, we advocate the deployment of ISO standards – such as the LEI – to identify parties and transactions.’