EXCLUSIVE— As the European Union launches its open banking initiatives, EU citizens are already becoming accustomed to further transparency on part of their banks. Agencies in the U.S., however, have yet to adopt such regulations, which is why open banking in the country will be driven by consumer preference.

This is according to John Mitchell, founder and CEO of SaaS provider service Episode Six, who told Bank Innovation that he sees “a lot of optimism” when it comes to open banking services across the globe.

“I think [open banking] is happening in the U.S., it’s just not mandated,” Mitchell told Bank Innovation. “Almost every large bank has some kind of open API — it’s more of a consumer-driven initiative.”

Consumers in the U.S. will drive banks to adopt further open banking standards especially as challenger banks and other fintech services, set on providing faster customer service with newer banking systems, become more prevalent in the country, Mitchell said.

At the moment, challenger or neobanks remain popular in countries like Germany or the United Kingdom—where regulations like PSD2 and GDPR are hitting home for many residents, especially as data security becomes more of a concern for the everyday bank customer—but the U.S. has its share, including banks like Chime, BankMobile, and Simple, which all have a few thousand/million customers apiece to their name.

“Open banking is going to create a lot more opportunity for the smaller startups,” Mitchell said, echoing several others in banking who have pointed to open APIs and other tenants of data transparency as a new age for startup partnership in finance. Mitchell also added that it will provide incentive for banks who have typically struggled for innovation, as “if a bank doesn’t offer any kind of open API, the integration [with startups] can take forever.”

Mitchell’s company provides cloud-based payments software to FIs, though he could not name any of his “several” clients at present. The company, which was founded in 2015, is set to conduct a proof-of-concept with a bank “in a French territory” this year, according to Mitchell. Mitchell was unable to disclose the name of the bank.