Switch to open banking from credential sharing today

TrueLayer’s Data API offers a secure and easy way for our clients to connect to their end-users’ bank accounts. At the moment, we support two different ways to connect to UK bank accounts: credential sharing and open banking.

Many clients who have been using Credential Sharing are interested in trying out the switch to Open Banking, and we’ve made it easy to do. Read on to learn how.

What’s the difference?

Our two types of connectivity in the UK function similarly but have some important differences:

• Open banking uses APIs written by the banks. The banks manage the user experience of the authentication process, so when end users connect their accounts, they actually go to their bank’s site or app to go through the log in process.

• Credential sharing uses proprietary TrueLayer technology in order to access private bank APIs. The user experience for authentication is managed by TrueLayer.

Why use open banking?

Open banking is the future. Due to EBA –RTS regulations, starting in September non-open banking methods of accessing data will be deemed non-compliant. And since open banking offers the potential for faster, more stable performance with its regulated API approach, now is the perfect time to start testing it.

One important difference is the user experience. We have written in the past about how some open banking flows have too much friction, but we are constantly collaborating with banks to provide feedback on their open banking user journeys, and — finally — we are seeing that more and more will support app-to-app and biometric authentication (for example, allowing a user to log in via TrueLayer just using their fingerprint or Face ID if they already have the bank’s app installed). 🎉

Once that happens, mobile users will have an almost frictionless way to connect their accounts via open banking. Bye bye username, PIN, memorable word, and hard to remember authentications!

One other difference to be aware of: with open banking, you will receive access to your users’ data for up to 90 days, whereas for credential sharing, the access can last longer. While this might be a concern, we expect banks to launch easier re-authentication flows to make renewing that access more seamless.

Who should use credential sharing?

The UK's Open banking regime does not support all banking features yet. The remaining features are coming in the next few months with Open Banking v3.1 and v3.1.1, namely:

• Credit cards

• Savings account

• The name of the account holder

Banks have a 13 September 2019 deadline for these features. The exact timeline for availability depends on the bank, and many will be available much earlier — feel free to reach out to us to find out more about specific bank timelines. In the meantime, use Credential Sharing for banks for which you require this access.

Still have questions?

If you would like to use TrueLayer, or are already using us and would like to discuss switching to Open Banking, please reach out — we would be happy to guide you through all the steps!