Automatic charity donations. Mortgage coaches. Free alternatives to overdrafts. Open banking is here – but it’s not what you may have expected.

Thanks to open banking, fintech early adopters likely already have accounts that round up transactions to boost savings or connect to third-party tools for loan applications, budget management and more. But the new wave of fintech startups are proving there’s much more that can be done using open banking, the two-year-old mandate from UK regulators that required banks to easily allow their customers to share their data with third parties such as apps.

“Open banking offers people the chance to get personalised, tailored support to help them manage their money by allowing regulated companies to securely analyse their bank data,” says Lubaina Manji, senior programme manager at Nesta Challenges, one of the organisations behind the Open Up 2020 Challenge, alongside the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE). “It’s enabled the creation of new services and tools to help people with every aspect of money management – from budgeting to investing, and much, much more, all in a safe and secure way.”

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