Open Banking On Track to Become Dominant Trend in China Say Senior Execs

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Leading figures from the Chinese banking and fintech sectors expect open banking to become a major trend in future.

Chen Qiao (陈峭), vice-president of online lender WeBank, said to Cebnet.com.cn that the “Open Banking 4.0 era” will soon be upon us.

“At present banking 3.0, which is embodied by mobile banking, is the mainstream…following the development of emerging technologies such as 5G, AI and AR, the open banking 4.0 era, which is embodied by API banking, is about to arrive.”

Chen expects the commercial model of banks to shift from B2C to B2B2C, and the user service benchmark to upgrade from net promotion scores to integrated-model net promotion scores.

Gao Xulei (高旭磊), vice-head of China Merchant Bank’s retail finance headquarters, said that open bank will create even more of an upheaval for the banking sector than online finance and smart finance, by enabling banks to serve as the sellers of the products and services of other cooperative partners.

Yang Bingbing (杨兵兵), general manager of China Guangda Bank’s electronic banking department, said that open banking is a natural extension of site integration, and that financial services will be integrated in all aspects of life and economic activity.

“Banks should enter the mainstream premises of third parties, and can no longer cling [to the notion] that ‘banks independently establish ecosystems.'”

Speaking at the “2018 New Online Banking Developments Under Standard Regulation and Fintech Forum” (2018年规范监管和金融科技下的网络银行新发展论坛) Xu Jiakun (徐家琨), vice-general manager of the online finance department of Beijing Rural Commercial Bank, highlighted four standard models of open banking.

i) The product export model, which means opening up financial service capability and using application programming interfaces (API) to incorporate products into various other premises and sites.

According to Xu this  model is a new form of customer acquisition, and is embodied by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank’s API.

ii) The open platform model, which involves banks building external cooperative platforms and providing standardised financial API’s, components and services, as well as simplifying the process of integration between banks and other enterprises.

iii) The third party integration cooperative model, which involves achieving integration with third parties via interfaces as implemented by Shanghai Huarui Bank.

iv) The implant model, which means using third party platforms or applications to promote products, such as the WeChat banks and small programs of various Chinese financial institutions.