Open banking regulation set to finalize this fall will boost small- and medium-sized-enterprise access to financial services, experts said this week in the Bank Automation News webinar, “The future of open banking – Payments meet data.” 

“I see SMEs as one of the biggest winners from an open banking, open finance perspective,” Michelle Beyo, chief executive at consulting firm Finavator, said during the webinar.  

Watch the webinar here.  

Open banking regulation, as it stands, is focused on consumer data; however, the APIs can also empower access to SME data, Katharina Luschnik, vice president of sales in open banking for Europe at Mastercard, said during the webinar. “They just have been a bit left out of the current regulation.” 

SMEs are the backbone of almost any country’s economy, Beyo said. They employ most citizens in any one country, but struggle to access financial resources. 

“Helping empower SMEs through open data, starting with open banking, followed by open finance, will really give them a leg up,” she said. 

Through open banking, SMEs will experience the following improvements: 

• Better cash flow; 

• The ability to hire more people; 

• Expansion of their business models; 

• Access to better data; and 

• Ability to create new products.