INTHEBLACK December 2021 - Magazine - Page 37
SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE
OPEN BANKING
PUTS CUSTOMERS
IN CONTROL OF
THEIR DATA
OPEN BANKING IS SET TO MAKE LIFE MUCH EASIER FOR SMALL
BUSINESSES AND THEIR ACCOUNTANTS, WHO WILL BENEFIT
FROM RICHER DATA INSIGHTS, TIME SAVINGS AND A MORE
COMPETITIVE BANKING LANDSCAPE.
S
INCE ITS AUSTRALIAN launch on 1 July
2020, the government-led open
banking scheme – part of the wider
Consumer Data Right (CDR) – has taken its
first steps towards giving customers greater
control over how their financial and banking
data is accessed and used.
As the first accounting software provider
in the country to be named an accredited
data recipient at the “unrestricted level”,
Intuit QuickBooks Australia understands
how the scheme will empower small
businesses and deliver value to accountants
and advisers.
First and foremost, open banking aims
to overcome many of the limitations
businesses currently face when importing
bank data into their accounting software,
says Steve Kemp, Intuit Australia’s head
of financial institutions partnerships for
Australia and emerging markets.
“Under the open banking regime, all
customer bank accounts – loans, credit
cards, etc. – will become available,” he says.
Kemp explains that customers will be able
to request the transfer of their financial
banking data directly into their Intuit
QuickBooks account, which will then appear
instantly through application programming
interfaces: a far more secure method than
manually entering account information, or
moving bits of paper (and passwords)
between advisers. He adds: “Customers and
their advisers will be getting access to the
data they need to run their business, which
will all be in real time – giving them richer
insights and a more comprehensive picture
of their business.”
GREATER EFFICIENCY AND CONTROL
Currently, less than 70 per cent of Intuit
QuickBooks’s transactions are automatically
Intuit QuickBooks is your trusted
partner to support you to adopt and
adapt to all the emerging
technologies and regulatory changes
that will affect CPA members and their
clients. We look forward to launching
our Open Banking solution in early
2022 and enabling your clients with
our suite of smarter business tools.
reconciled through bank feeds, but with
open banking accreditation, that number is
expected to double. Finance teams will no
longer need to upload statements, chase
data from clients or complete the manual
application process to set up bank feeds.
This will create a huge time saving for
businesses – estimated at about eight to 10
hours each week. “It will definitely support
accountants to shift more of their focus into
advisory services,” Kemp says.
With access to real-time data through
QuickBooks’s dashboard, Kemp adds that
businesses will gain better cash flow insights.
“Through cash flow planning capability,
which is AI [artificial intelligence] driven,
customers will be able to look forward weeks
and months into their business to do
forecasting and see what their true cash
position is going to be, so they don’t have
any surprises when things don’t go to plan.”
DRIVING INNOVATION
The open banking rollout is almost complete,
with major and non-major authorised
deposit-taking institutions having already met
most milestones relating to the sharing of
data and full data transfer expected by
February 2022. In September 2021, Westpac
joined NAB and Commonwealth Bank as the
first of the “Big Four” banks to become
accredited data recipients, meaning it will not
only share its data, but also – with customer
consent – be able to obtain CDR data and
register its products with data holders.
Since recent amendments were made to
CDR legislation, empowering consumers to
share their data with “trusted professional
advisers”, Kemp believes more providers will
soon come on board as accredited data
recipients. In doing so, they will be able to
leverage competitors’ data to tailor products
and services to their customers, which will
lead to increased competition in the banking
sector and, in turn, to greater innovation.
“The whole purpose of consumer data
originally was to provide customers with
much greater control, but also to give them
much greater ability to compare and find the
best product and service for whatever their
need is,” he says.
“This will save them time and money, and
allow them to focus on the things that are
most important to them.”
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