Open banking payments exceed one billion in UK

Open Banking Limited announced on July 29, 2026 that more than one billion payments have been made in the UK using open banking and that systems have processed 100 billion application programming interface requests. The organisation reported the average response time for a payment request has improved by about 50 milliseconds to 349ms.

Open banking allows customers to give permission for banks to share their account data with third-party providers through APIs. Firms use those connections to initiate payments, combine account information in one place and offer other services with customer consent.

The UK framework for open banking began after a 2017 order from the Competition and Markets Authority requiring major banks to provide standardized APIs. That rule established technical standards and an infrastructure that let fintechs and other firms request account data and start payments with customer permission.

Research commissioned by Open Banking Limited and carried out by EY estimates the sector has delivered £8.2 billion in economic benefits to date. The analysis projects open banking could add about £7.4 billion a year within five years and reach up to £43 billion a year at full maturity.

Open finance would extend the same type of data sharing to other products such as mortgages and loans and would allow more offerings from external providers to reach consumers.

Henk Van Hulle, chief executive of Open Banking Limited, described the figures as ‘reinforcing the UK’s position as a global leader in open banking and demonstrating an ecosystem that continues to scale in both volume and capability.’ He added the organisation will focus on strengthening resilience, performance and innovation to support the next phase of open banking and open finance.

Ron Kalifa, who led a government fintech review in 2021, warned in February that the UK has ‘laid the rail track, but hesitated to run the trains’ and noted that open finance has not yet been delivered. He pointed to other countries pursuing comparable programmes.

Open Banking Limited expects industry participants to monitor scale and performance metrics as usage grows while regulators, banks and fintech firms prepare for broader data sharing under open finance.