The Green Sheet Online Edition
July 7, 2021 • 21:07:02
Readers Speak: Open banking intermediaries
I'm looking for information about what open banking intermediaries are and what they have to offer. My primary ISO has a great set of offerings to choose from, so I have no need of something extra or more advanced at the moment, but given amazing rate of change in payments, I make it a point to research things that might be of use in the future or that might just be good to know about for context as things develop. Can you help?
Asher Reed. Merchant Level Salesperson
Asher,
Thank you for your commitment to ongoing education. Open banking intermediaries provide services designed to speed innovation in open banking. With government backing, open banking has made great strides in the EU market; in the United States it hasn't been fully embraced. That said, it is a growing part of the financial services fabric. You will likely be interested in a report published in March 2021 by Forrester and titled The Forrester New Wave: Open Banking Intermediaries, Q1 2021. It evaluates nine leading open banking intermediaries identified by researchers as the "Most significant providers" in the category. The report's introduction explains the function of these intermediaries as follows: "As a market segment, intermediaries offer services across a broad spectrum, but individually, they will often specialize. A few help banks build APIs to comply with open banking regulations; others focus on customer-facing propositions and innovation through white-label apps and third-party innovation marketplaces; and a couple are particularly strong in payments."
Intermediaries were evaluated on aggregation services, value-added services, consent lifecycle, deployment flexibility, third-party onboarding and verification, developer experience, innovation ecosystem and vision. Notably, Forrester found that Plaid has the strongest all around capability, footprint and vision. "Plaid has a long pedigree of data aggregation, scoring highly for flexible deployment via banking platforms and payment networks," researchers wrote. "Plaid's dominant coverage enables it to launch value-added solutions like the open data ecosystem Plaid Exchange and attract over 100 platform partners in the US."
Editor
Open banking and you
What's your experience with open banking? What potential does it have? Tell us about this and other compelling innovations at greensheet@greensheet.com. 
Whether you want to upgrade your POS offerings, find a payment gateway partner, bone up on fintech regs or PCI requirements, find an upcoming trade show, read about faster payments, or discover the latest innovations in merchant acquiring, The Green Sheet is the resource for you. Since 1983, we've helped empower and connect payments professionals, starting with the merchant level salespeople who bring tailored payment acceptance and digital commerce tools, along with a host of other business services to merchants across the globe. The Green Sheet Inc. is also a proud affiliate of Bankcard Life, a premier community that provides industry-leading training and resources for payment professionals.
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