How open banking can help during COVID-19

As I’m writing this, the COVID-19 crisis is spreading across the world, putting people, the economy, and our society at risk. While scientists, doctors, and nurses are fighting on the front line, and governments are putting extreme measures in place, we think that technology must do its part to help in such a critical time.

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For the first time in human history, the entire world is focused on one problem.”

@naval, Twitter

At TrueLayer, we’ve been thinking of ways that we can put our expertise and technology to work to help support our community and economy. We are experts in operating open banking, and our platform powers a range of use cases that help to reduce manual, in-person processes — from identity verification to payments.

Today, we are offering the use of our platform for free to any person or business who wants to use open banking to help in this time of crisis. Here are a few ideas and use cases that we can support:

• Verifying financial need — open banking can quickly and digitally verify a person’s financial need, helping governments and companies deliver targeted aid. This is especially helpful for the self-employed and people with multiple/variable sources of income;

• Charities — open banking enables charities to receive instant donations without incurring card interchange fees;

• Cashless payments — open banking can completely replace cash payments with a digital alternative that is fast and secure;

• Rapid onboarding and identity validation — we imagine many legal and contracting flows to be disrupted by not being able to identify parties in person. open banking can help verify identity and bank account details digitally and securely.

Call to Arms

Government agencies, charities, healthcare providers, app developers, hackers — we are here to help. We want to share our expertise and technology, free of charge, with anyone who wants to use open banking to help reduce the impact of COVID-19.

If you want to take us up on this offer, or if you know of a business or person that we can help, please email us with more information, or comment on this post.

Stay safe,

Fra