Heritage adopts open banking solution

Heritage Bank has said that it is teaming up with leading professional services organisation Ernst & Young Australia (EY) to deploy a new open banking solution that will “unlock opportunities for consumers to explore greater competition in financial services”.

Built on the EY client technology platform using an all-Microsoft Azure native technology stack, the cloud-based solution aims to help manage data flow between consumers, data holders, data recipients and open banking collaborators and regulators.

Heritage Bank CEO Peter Lock said: “We’re looking forward to working with EY on our open banking solution. They have unrivalled capabilities in this area and will help us deliver a first-class solution.

“Open banking provides some exciting opportunities for consumers, so it’s crucial for the infrastructure behind the initiative to be rock solid.

“We want to reinforce to our members that our approach will keep their data secure and under their control. Tapping into EY’s extensive local and global knowledge in this space will be crucial in ensuring our solution is not only secure but also easy to use.”

EY Oceania open banking leader Andy Parton said: “We’re very excited to be working with Heritage Bank on this important and exciting initiative to help them drive innovation and greater consumer choice through Open Banking.

“Heritage will not only comply with the Consumer Data Right (CDR) regulations but is well-positioned to capitalise on the opportunity to compete in this new world of open banking and, ultimately, better serve its members.

“I’m very proud that Heritage selected EY to collaborate with on their open banking journey and will have our technology at the heart of their solution.”

Under the Consumer Data Right – which forms part of the open banking regime – consumers, including individuals and business customers, have the right to safely access certain data about them held by businesses. It gives them the right to direct the data holder to transfer that information to accredited, trusted third parties of their choice.

For example, customers could grant access for brokers, financial planners or tools such as budgeting apps, with access to their personal data to help hunt for better deals on products or services.

Under the regime, which is being rolled out in a phased basis, customers of the major banks have been able to direct the four major banks to share data on bank accounts (from 1 July 2020), mortgage and personal loan data (1 November 2020).

From 1 November 2021, the major banks will also enable business consumers to share their data with accredited data recipients.

Non-major banks will follow with a similar phased approach, starting with deposits on 1 July 2021 and moving to mortgages and personal loans in November 2021.

Major and non-major ADIs must commence amendment of consents from 1 July 2021. 

The EY solution will therefore give Heritage the functionality required to meet the data holder obligations across each of these milestones.

[Related: Inquiry outlines 100 ways to improve CDR]