FCA maps out a broader future for open finance

The Financial Conduct Authority has set out an ambitious vision for open finance, arguing that consumers and businesses should have far greater control over how their financial data is shared and used.

FCA maps out a broader future for open finance

In the regulator’s view, extending data-sharing principles beyond open banking could help people access better mortgages, savings, investments and pensions, while also giving firms a richer understanding of customers’ financial circumstances.

That, in turn, could support more personalised services, stronger competition and improved fraud prevention. The FCA formally published its vision on 14 April 2026, framing open finance as part of a wider “smart data” future for UK financial services.

Why the regulator is starting with mortgages and SME lending

What is especially notable is the FCA’s decision to begin with practical, high-impact use cases rather than attempt a sweeping overhaul from the outset. Its initial priorities are mortgages and lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Both areas are well chosen. Mortgage underwriting still involves fragmented data, manual document gathering and limited visibility into household finances, while SME lending remains hampered by patchy information and lengthy application processes.

The FCA believes better data portability could help borrowers secure more suitable products and enable lenders to make quicker, better-informed decisions.

This gradualism matters. Open banking demonstrated the promise of secure data sharing, but it also exposed the difficulty of building sustainable commercial models, common standards and durable governance.

The FCA appears keen to avoid repeating that mistake at a larger scale. Its roadmap points to TechSprints, PolicySprints, workshops and roundtables throughout 2026, alongside the PRISM taskforce, which will be used to assess which use cases are most likely to deliver meaningful consumer, competition and growth benefits.

A discussion paper on the first open finance scheme is due in the fourth quarter of 2026, with work on longer-term regulation continuing into 2027 and beyond.

A significant opportunity for fintech and payments

For the payments and fintech sector, the significance of this agenda extends beyond data access alone. Open finance could create the foundation for more intelligent credit journeys, embedded financial management tools and a new generation of services built around verified, consented customer data.

Innovate Finance has already linked the concept to the future development of agentic AI, arguing that trusted access to high-quality financial data could support more advanced automated decision-making. The FCA’s own Smart Data Accelerator has already tested use cases including AI-enhanced mortgage affordability tools and reusable SME loan application data packages.

Promise is clear, but execution will decide the outcome

The central challenge now is execution. Consumer trust, liability allocation, interoperability and commercial incentives will all determine whether open finance becomes a transformative UK framework or another worthy concept slowed by industry friction.

Still, the FCA’s roadmap is an important signal: the regulator wants the next phase of financial innovation to be built on portable, permissioned data rather than siloed product relationships. If delivered well, open finance could become one of the defining policy developments in UK financial services over the next decade.