Norwegian banks spearhead PSD2 collaboration

Even though the technical implementation of PSD2 has been delayed, there is no doubt that opening up the banking infrastructure will change the face of retail banking as we know it. While Norwegian banks are not required to open up until the second half of 2019, leading Norwegian banks are getting ahead of the curve and are making PSD2 happen long before it is required.

As of the first half of this year, Sbanken, Sparebanken Vest, and Sparebanken Sogn og Fjordane will enter a collaboration where customers will be able to view their accounts and balance across the competing banks. As most retail banking customers are customers at more than one bank, it is expected that this will give people a better total overview of their finances. Expansion of the APIs will depend on customer usage and feedback.

We hope to set an example of how banks can collaborate to compete and hope more banks will follow in our footsteps. By doing this now, we are leveraging APIs to create both customer value as well as a competitive advantage rather than waiting until it is required of us to open up our APIs under PSD2.

For more on this initiative, check out the official statement from the collaboration partners (in Norwegian).

For more on open banking, check out this handy guide.

For more on PSD2, here’s an introduction.