openFinance API Framework
With the aim to leverage the NextGenPSD2 API Framework technology and infrastructure investments, openFinance allows banks, Third Party Providers (TPPs) and other Access Clients to offer enhanced services, products and information that will benefit market participants and will further improve customer experiences. Berlin Group openFinance adds standardised extensions beyond the regulatory PSD2 scope that enable bank customers (consumer or corporate account owners), directly or via TPPs and other Access Clients, to access bank accounts for commercial premium services and enriched data.
By expanding the access of customers’ financial data to broader data sources and additional account types, enhanced views on customers’ finances are offered which will empower bank customers to actively choose the best value products and services they need. openFinance will improve the basic credit transfer with additional functionalities (e.g. flexible execution and document handling) and enables the creation of many other new payment and credit services. The openFinance services will attune to the ambitions of the European Commission’s Retail Payments Strategy and to any relevant future scheme definition.
The Open Finance Advisory Board
Background & Context
Participants & Structure
Meetings & Public Deliverables
Background & Context
The above participants of the openFinance Advisory Group & Board represent the market demand-side (i.e. Third Party Providers, FinTechs / IT Solution Providers, Merchants / Retailers / Corporates / SMEs, Consumers, Consultancies and Industry Associations).
The current openFinance Advisory Board and Co-Chairs have been elected and confirmed with their term ending on 18 September 2021.
Elected Co-Chairs:
Bruno Cambounet (Sopra)
Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA)
The openFinance Advisory Board consists of a maximum of 20 members, including the Co-Chairs, representing the openFinance Advisory Group stakeholder groups. The stakeholder groups and elected members are as follows:
Market demand-side:
Registered TPPs: Fanny Rodriguez (Fintecture), Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA)
FinTechs/IT Solution Providers: Bruno Cambounet (Sopra), Marc-Andre Bewernik (ndgit), Kannan Rasappan (Banfico), Steffen Weiss (Randstad Digital)
Merchants/Retailers/Corporates/SMEs: Bertrand Pineau (Club Mercatel)
Consumer organisations: vacant seat
Industry Associations/Consultancies: vacant seat
Market supply-side Observers:
3 members, designated by the openFinance Taskforce: Varying composition
Regulatory Observers – 3 (1 from the European Banking Authority, 1 from the European Central Bank, 1 from the European Commission), designated by their corresponding organisations: vacant seats
Participants & Structure
The above participants of the openFinance Advisory Group & Board represent the market demand-side (i.e. Third Party Providers, FinTechs / IT Solution Providers, Merchants / Retailers / Corporates / SMEs, Consumers, Consultancies and Industry Associations).
The current openFinance Advisory Board and Co-Chairs have been elected and confirmed with their term ending on 18 September 2021.
Elected Co-Chairs:
Bruno Cambounet (Sopra)
Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA)
The openFinance Advisory Board consists of a maximum of 20 members, including the Co-Chairs, representing the openFinance Advisory Group stakeholder groups. The stakeholder groups and elected members are as follows:
Market demand-side:
Registered TPPs: Fanny Rodriguez (Fintecture), Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA)
FinTechs/IT Solution Providers: Bruno Cambounet (Sopra), Marc-Andre Bewernik (ndgit), Kannan Rasappan (Banfico), Steffen Weiss (Randstad Digital)
Merchants/Retailers/Corporates/SMEs: Bertrand Pineau (Club Mercatel)
Consumer organisations: vacant seat
Industry Associations/Consultancies: vacant seat
Market supply-side Observers:
3 members, designated by the openFinance Taskforce: Varying composition
Regulatory Observers – 3 (1 from the European Banking Authority, 1 from the European Central Bank, 1 from the European Commission), designated by their corresponding organisations: vacant seats
The current openFinance Advisory Board and Co-Chairs have been The current openFinance Advisory Board and Co-Chairs have been elected and confirmed with their term ending on 18 September 2021.
Elected Co-Chairs:
Bruno Cambounet (Sopra)
Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA, PPRO, Tink)
The openFinance Advisory Board consists of a maximum of 20 members, including the Co-Chairs, representing the openFinance Advisory Group stakeholder groups. The stakeholder groups and elected members are as follows:
Market demand-side:
Registered TPPs – 3 member representatives: Fanny Rodriguez (Bridge/Perspecteev-Bankin’), Deepak Monga (Reflow), Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA, PPRO, Tink)
FinTechs/IT Solution Providers – 3 member representatives: Bruno Cambounet (Sopra), Marc-André Bewernick (NDGIT), Jack Wilson (OFAE/TrueLayer)
Merchants/Retailers/Corporates/SMEs – 3 member representatives: Steffen Weiss (DATEV), Jean-Michel Chanavas (Club Mercatel), 1 vacant seat
Consumer organisations – 1 member representative: 1 vacant seat
Industry Associations/Consultancies – 4 member representatives: Alain Martin (FIDO), Gavin Littlejohn (FDATA), Hakan Eroglu (Mastercard), Manish Garg (Banksly/Debito)
Market supply-side Observers:
3 members, designated by the openFinance Taskforce: Varying composition
Regulatory Observers – 3 (1 from the European Banking Authority, 1 from the European Central Bank, 1 from the European Commission), designated by their corresponding organisations: 3 vacant seats
Meetings & Public Deliverables
Meetings
The following meetings (including the former NextGenPSD2 meetings) have been organised sofar:
20180706 – Webinar Conference Call Meeting
20181012 – Meeting hosted by KAL Ltd. in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
20190206 – Meeting hosted by SDV / adorsys in Nürnberg, Germany
20190515 – Meeting hosted by Finastra in Paris, France
20190709 – Meeting hosted by Accenture in Zurich, Switzerland
20190930 – Meeting hosted by adorsys in Eschborn (Frankfurt), Germany
20200204 – Meeting hosted by Sopra Steria in Paris, France
Due to the 2020 Covid-19 situation, follow-on meetings have been scheduled to be organised as remote web conference calls since March 2020.
Public Deliverables
The following Public Deliverables specific to the openFinance Advisory Group & Board have been published sofar:
The openFinance Taskforce
Background & Context
Participants & Structure
Deliverables & Technical Specifications
Background & Context
PSD2 XS2A set the regulatory benchmark for consent-driven data access and enabling third parties to trigger a payment. One of the main intentions of PSD2 was to foster innovation and competition in the European banking market. While a first step has been made, more is needed to truly achieve this objective.
PSD2 ensures access to datasets on a bank customers’ payment account. Further, the defined roles for payment initiation and account information allow to provide basic payment services. Compared to other payment means, these will not allow to unleash the full innovation potential. This is why openFinance was established: the openFinance services will cover broader data sources and additional account types than what is required from a PSD2 regulatory perspective.
Participants & Structure
The above participants of the openFinance Taskforce represent the market supply-side (i.e. banks, payment/banking associations, payment schemes and interbank processors operating in SEPA), as providers of the openFinance APIs. The openFinance Taskforce is supported by the API Experts Working Group, a Business Evaluation Working Group and a Market Communications Working Group.
Deliverables & Technical Specifications
The openFinance Framework is built on different artefacts, which are all published for free under Creative Commons (CC-BY-ND):
An Operational Rules document that covers the service description, abstract (logical) data model and detailed process flow descriptions in a B2B interface;
Implementation Guidelines that specify the service interface in technical detail, including XML/JSON schemas;
An OpenAPI file that helps implementers during development; Technical errata might still be published. You can find all openFinance documents available for download here.
How To Participate?
Participants of the openFinance Taskforce represent the market supply-side (i.e. banks, payment/banking associations, payment schemes and interbank processors operating in SEPA), providing the openFinance APIs.
If your organisation is operating on the market supply-side and is interested in participating to the openFinance Taskforce, then please send a message to info@berlin-group.org.
For participation to the openFinance Taskforce it is not required to be a Berlin Group member: the openFinance Taskforce is open for participation to any interested and committed non-Berlin Group participant as well, because the scope of the openFinance topic might be interesting to work on also for other market supply-side participants, not necessarily only by Berlin Group members. For participants to the openFinance Taskforce, there are no further Terms of Reference restrictions or applicable fees. The only commitment asked from participants is to participate as actively as possible on a best effort basis, which allows then to influence the process and results and being informed at first hand. Participants are engaged on a voluntary basis.
As transparency to the market is a key guiding principle for an open standardisation initiative such as the Berlin Group, the website always shows the organisations that have joined as participants to the openFinance Taskforce: an updated participant list will be published each time when a new participant joins. The participant list mentions the organisation name and logo of the participants. The application as a participant only becomes final once the organisation logo has been received in a web-ready version (.PNG or .JPG file, 72 dpi) and a print-ready version (.EPS, .AI or .PDF file, 300 dpi).
Participants of the openFinance Advisory Group & Board represent the market demand-side (i.e. as a Registered Third Party Provider, a FinTech/IT Solution Provider, a Merchant/Retailer/Corporate/SME, a Consumer Organisation, or an Industry Association/Consultancy), consuming the openFinance APIs.
If your organisation is operating on the market demand-side and is interested in participating to the openFinance Advisory Group & Board, then please send a message to advisory@berlin-group.org (please mark a permanent exception for ‘advisory@berlin-group.org’ and ‘advisory@open-finance-api.org’ in your SPAM-filters in order to ensure proper reception of messages).
The openFinance Advisory Group & Board is open for participation to any interested and committed market demand-side participant. Composition of the openFinance Advisory Group & Board needs to be balanced amongst the different stakeholders, in order to ensure
balanced and fair market representation without exclusive domination or guidance in standards development
due decision-making in broad consensus with equity and fairness among participants
For participants to the openFinance Advisory Group & Board, there are no applicable fees. The only commitment asked from participants is to participate as actively as possible on a best effort basis, which allows then to influence the process and results and being informed at first hand. Participants are engaged on a voluntary basis.
As transparency to the market is a key guiding principle for an open standardisation initiative such as the Berlin Group, the website always shows the organisations that have joined as participants to the openFinance Advisory Group & Board: an updated participant list will be published each time when a new participant joins. The participant list mentions the organisation name and logo of the participants. The application as a participant only becomes final once the organisation logo has been received in a web-ready version (.PNG or .JPG file, 72 dpi) and a print-ready version (.EPS, .AI or .PDF file, 300 dpi).
