The global banking sector continues to support open finance and collaboration, with 85% of professionals agreeing that open finance is making the industry more collaborative and making a positive impact, while 80% consider the sector open to collaboration.

The findings were published in a recent preview of the annual State of the Nation Financial Services research report by financial software provider Finastra.

Collaboration between banks and fintechs has become necessary to meet customers’ demand for better and faster services, Angus Ross, chief growth officer and global head of embedded finance at Finastra, told Bank Automation News.

“[For banks] to retain their existing customers, grow their existing customers, let alone start to capture other companies’ market shares, they’re needing to open up and unbundle their products and services, and get them into the more common points of context that those end customers are demanding,” Ross said.

Of the 758 financial professionals surveyed for the report, 87% said organizations’ openness to collaboration is an improvement over five years ago. Finastra surveyed professionals from financial institutions across France, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE, the U.K. and the U.S., according to the company.

The support for collaboration and open finance has remained strong year over year, with 94% of respondents in 2021 saying collaboration is very or somewhat important, and 66% saying it is very important, according to last year’s report.

Digital wallets

Finastra’s findings come as major digital wallet providers have accelerated their merchant adds in the third quarter, according to Morgan Stanley’s Payments and Processing: 3Q22 Acceptance Tracker report.

Morgan Stanley’s findings include:

• PayPal Checkout saw four net merchant adds in Q3, as it added five merchants and lost one;
• PayPal’s Pay in 4 added seven net new merchants in Q3;
• Affirm added one net new merchant in Q3. The fintech added three and lost two merchants to reach a total of 68 merchants; and
• Klarna onboarded five net new merchants in Q3; it added six and lost one, to reach a total of 76 merchants.