Europe and the United Kingdom were the pioneers in the Open Banking movement, subsequently expanding to different parts of the world thanks to regulatory changes, technological advances, new business models and consumer trends.
The concept of Open Finance represents a significant evolution with respect to Open Banking. In this phase, financial data, regardless of its origin, can be shared with various parties through APIs, giving users autonomy in control of their personal information. This data exchange includes tax entities, investment platforms and insurance.
One of the most revolutionary features of this new model of information exchange is its ability to operate in various directions. Users can share information stored in their bank accounts with new digital platforms, and vice versa. It is important to note that this exchange is not limited exclusively to bank details.
The open financial system offers significant benefits for both users and financial institutions. By enabling the easy and secure exchange of financial information between different organizations, a more inclusive financial system can be created. In other words, more product and service options are offered, allowing a greater number of users to potentially become new customers.
In this article, we will explore how the Open Finance landscape is in Latin America and the prospects for the coming years in terms of innovation related to this concept.
The Implementation of Open Banking and Open Finance in Latin America
Although the industry recognizes its importance, the progress of Open Finance in the region in 2023 has been moderate. Mexico and Colombia did not meet standards definition expectations, while Peru remains at a stalemate. In contrast, Chile shows signs of promising progress, with solid forecasts for the future, and Brazil moves its regulation towards a conclusion phase.
Progress in this movement is intrinsically linked to the capacity and willingness of each country to embrace this transformation. The lack of regulatory momentum limits the potential of the ecosystem, and progress in this regard could provide greater dynamism to the sector.
Let’s see how the situation is in each country:
BRAZIL
Brazil has been a pioneer in adoption in Latin America, and its Open Finance regulation, already in force and in the final phase, has placed the country at the global forefront. According to data from the Central Bank, the open financial system has already registered more than 41.8 million active consents.
As this improved version of Open Banking evolves, access to data becomes even more complete in the country, allowing the construction of offers more targeted to the financial profile of customers. The last launch of Open Finance, in September 2023, focused on investment data, where clients of participating institutions in the ecosystem can share their data related to investment products and services.
For the coming years, even greater progress is expected, promising significant transformations, such as:
Superapps: Improvements in the applications of large financial institutions that will function as aggregator platforms, operating as marketplaces that bring together all the users’ financial information in a single application.
Open Insurance: Seeks to allow the exchange of insurance data and services, contributing to the development of this market.
Open Finance in Pension: With a focus on the market of closed complementary pension entities, it will facilitate the comparison between different plans with greater transparency, allowing portability between plans and increasing efficiency in contracting these services.
ARGENTINA
Until now, Argentina does not have official regulation. However, the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) has discussed initiatives and, together with the Financial Information Unit (UIF), has included some regulatory provisions to support the Open Finance model. These include legislation on the right of consumers to transfer their data and the authorization for banks to share customer data, with consent, for digital environment processes.
However, these provisions have yet to be implemented and due to the lack of official structure, Banco Industrial (BIND) launched its BANK API platform with Poincenot Technology Studio in 2018, becoming the first bank in the country to offer open APIs to the market.
Currently, large financial organizations have less incentive to adopt Open Finance due to the lack of regulation driving them in this direction. In this scenario, it is not
They expect great advances in this movement in the coming years in Argentina.
COLOMBIA
The years 2022 and 2023 marked a change of pace in the regulation of Open Finance in Colombia. After a consultation period, the government issued decree 1297 in 2022, which deepened the regulation of Open Finance in the country. This decree addresses payment activity through “low-value systems”, the processing of personal data by entities supervised by the Superfinanciera, the offering of services in third-party non-face-to-face channels (BaaS), monitoring standards of the architecture of Open Finance and the commercialization of technology and infrastructure for third parties.
In early 2023, the government included in the National Development Plan a general clause stating that state entities and companies “must provide access and supply all information that can be used to facilitate access to financial products and services.” In this way, the text embraces the business model in which, once the authorization of the owner is obtained, data can be exchanged in the financial ecosystem, with the aim of generating multiple benefits for users and the system in general.
Colombia has a hybrid model in which financial institutions lead the implementation of Open Banking, in alliance with the regulator, developing joint regulations that will allow for more viable use cases.
MEXICO
In Mexico, the Financial Technology Institutions Regulation Law, one of the first steps globally to regulate the Fintech sector and the open banking model, was published in 2018. However, it was not until 2020 that the Bank of Mexico established the first rules on Open Banking, initially focused on public data, such as the location of ATMs and information about products offered by financial institutions. Banks had more than a year to provide access to this initial set of data.
However, the provisions for the second phase of Open Banking in Mexico, which must regulate the exchange of transactional data, are still waiting to be published. In parallel, a solid ecosystem around Open Finance is flourishing in Mexico, including API aggregators, fintechs and financial institutions that already apply the principles of these models under data protection laws. Although users can already give their consent to the processing of their data, there is still no explicit rule that makes this process mandatory for banks.
In the coming years, regulation could take significant steps, with the National Commission of Banks and Securities (CNBV) showing openness, knowledge, capacity and a closer approach to the entities involved in this movement.
CHILI
Chile is the country with the highest banking penetration in Latin America (74.3%). The Commission for the Financial Market (CMF), together with the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, is already working on a plan to provide a regulatory structure for certain fintech models, such as crowdfunding platforms. After several years of debate, the Chilean Fintech Law appears to be approaching its final stages, and the CMF has reflected on the benefits of Open Finance.
The government has also implemented the Financial Portability Law, which allows individuals and companies to freely change providers of financial products, at a stage prior to Open Banking. The CMF is expected to develop an overall structure to specify the rules for the Open Banking ecosystem in the country in the next two years.
PERU
Although Peru does not yet have official regulation for Open Banking or Open Finance, various authorities and groups in the country have expressed interest in these models and have proposed initial elements to begin defining a path. The Fintech Group of the Peruvian banking regulator (Superintendency of Banking, Insurance and Private Pension Fund Administrators, or SBS) has announced that it has an initial diagnosis on Open Banking in Peru and is inclined to evaluate the broader concept of Open Finance, encompassing the entire financial sector, including insurance and pension funds.
On the other hand, a group of congressmen presented a bill that received the collaboration of state agencies and the Peruvian Banking Association. The Central Reserve Bank of Peru supports the proposal and suggests that it must have the regulatory capacity to develop open banks in the country. The Banking Association (ASBANC) also supported the proposed law, but believes that it should not be mandatory because not all banks are at the same level of technological development.
At the same time, in the Peruvian banking scene, some initiatives without state regulation are already underway. In 2016, Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP) launched the Yape real-time payment system for payments between individuals. In 2020, YellowPepper partnered with banks BBVA, Interbank and Scotiabank to launch PLIN, a competitive system.
