“Lot of work to be done” to achieve open banking success, says Volt CEO

The interim CEO of open banking fintech Volt says there is still a “lot of work” to be done for open banking to achieve success in the UK.

Steffen Vollert, co-founder and interim CEO of Volt, was speaking on the Tech.eu podcast, where he talked about his new role, Volt’s offering and how open banking is developing across Europe.

Volt, founded in 2019 and which now has around 150 staff, specialises in open banking. It was valued at around $350m in 2023. Open banking technology is loosely defined as banks and financial institutions opening up data so that fintechs and other third parties can bring new products to market to help provide competition and more consumer choice.

On open banking, Vollert said: “I think in the UK there is still a lot of work to be done for open banking to succeed and capture effective market share from the cards.”

He cited the delays in the introduction of VRPs - which via open banking enable individuals to make account-to-account payments of varying amounts- and new APP (Authorised Push Payment) fraud rules as hindering the development of open banking.

He said: “Especially in the UK, it seems that the cards still defend their stronghold. I think a major fail factor for open banking is also the delay with VRPs and VRPs ultimately allowing for future parity with cards where you can have one click where you can have recurring, sort of Uber and Spotify experience.

“That will of course, greatly enhance the use case for open banking in the UK.

“In addition, the APP fraud rules and the practical implementation, or lack thereof, has probably had quite a negative impact on open banking fintechs.

“I think in the UK there is still a lot of work to be done for open banking to succeed and to capture effective market share from the cards.”