SpareBank 1, a Norway-based banking group, has selected Danish fintech Nets to provide its open banking infrastructure.
Image: SpareBank 1 chooses Nets’ open banking infrastructure. Photo: Courtesy of Pijon/Pixabay.
The alliance of 14 savings banks will deploy Nets Access to Account Services (NAAS), a single platform that enables access to banks across the Nordics and Europe.
Nets said that its single integration solution will provide all the banks in the SpareBank 1 alliance access to all the bank accounts in Norway and beyond to begin payment and account information via a single application programming interface (API) standard.
The integration will enable the alliance to develop new services for its customers.
The open banking service will act as a single point of entry for the banks. The data of bank users will be stored and secured in full compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements.
With revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) coming into effect on 14 September 2019, switching to Nets’ open banking infrastructure will facilitate new digital banking services and enable better overviews of consumers’ finances.
SpareBank 1 open banking product owner Kristine Ursfjord said: “We have chosen Nets as a strategic partner to ensure we can leverage all the opportunities that PSD2 presents. By using the Nets Access to Account Services, we will be able to easily access accounts in other banks, both in Norway and abroad.
“By doing so, we can develop and offer even better products and services for the customers of all banks in the SpareBank 1 alliance.”
Nets open banking sales head Georg Olav Ramstad said: “We are very happy that SpareBank 1 has chosen Nets as its strategic partner for open banking.
“Our NAAS platform will give the members of the SpareBank 1 group an important tool for maximising their open banking functionality and developing innovative new products and services for consumers.”
When PSD2 comes into effect, consumers will have more opportunities to access their financial data and share it with services providers of their choice.
Banks and Third-Party Providers (TPPs) will be able to retrieve information from different sources and present consumers’ financial information in a more understandable and informative way.
Ramstad continued saying: “Banks have a competitive advantage compared to many other players, since they already have an overview of customers’ financial history and health, including information that the PSD2 legislation does not require them to enable TPP access to, and this information is often highly detailed. Banks are also able to leverage consumer trust and their large customer bases.”