Alan Ainsworth, policy and strategy director of Open Banking Limited (OBL), is moving on after six years in the role.
The successor organisation to the Open Banking Implementation Entity, OBL was mandated by the Competition and Markets Authority to oversee the roll out of open banking in the UK.
Ainsworth, who is going it alone in a new advisory consultancy role, says his highlights in helping to drive the direction of open banking in the UK have been "the development and implementation of a Standard that includes app-to-app authentication, refunds, variable recurring payments and UX guidelines, the Strategic Working Group report that created the basis for today’s JROC activity, and of course the steadily increasing number of people and businesses benefiting from open banking services".
Six years on from the establishment of the OBIE, the UK now boasts eight million users and 13 million monthly payments.
The OBL is set for a further transition this year to a new entity, moving beyond being a competition remedy and looking to harness commercial incentives to push open finance into new territories.
Learn more about payments at NextGen Nordics on the 23 April 2024.