Open Banking

Open Banking allows your customers to securely share a snapshot of their financial information with Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-regulated providers. It makes use of Government-backed technology to provide consumers and businesses with a simple and secure way to manage their money.

It was introduced to provide consumers with more convenient ways to manage their finances and to encourage new, innovative products and services to the market. The end goal is to facilitate getting customers and small- to medium-sized businesses the best deal possible when it comes to their finances.

We will get in touch with you via email with all the relevant details and a link to where your customer can start the Open Banking journey — you can then send this on to your customer to get the process started. From there, they will be able to select who they bank with and connect their personal and business accounts as directed.

As part of this process, they will be asked to log in to their bank and give their consent to share their information. You can reassure them that Atom bank or our partner Credit Kudos will never have access to these log-in details, we only receive a snapshot of their account.

When permission has been granted, we will connect to your customer’s bank account using the Open Banking API — software that ensures that two applications can speak to each other securely.

To summarise, when a customer shares their details through Open Banking, it’s just like sending a paper bank statement to us, but hasslefree, faster and more secure.

At Atom we are continuously looking to simplify the application process for our brokers and their customers. The introduction of Open Banking will speed up processes for all parties involved, namely lending decisions, further information requests and account reviews.

As we will be able to obtain bank transaction information very quickly, without the need to manually collate and process paper based bank statements, your customer will get a quicker decision and reduce the need for additional further information requests.

The Open Banking connection journey should only take a few minutes and is a much more secure way of providing financial information.

When your customer shares financial information through Open Banking, Atom bank will only receive a snapshot of the last 24 months of their account history, including:

• Account details
• Balance
• Account transactions

At no point will we, or our partner Credit Kudos, have access to login details.

Credit Kudos is an Account Information Service Provider (AISP) regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (ref. 770345 and 795791). We have partnered with them to deliver Open Banking via their platform, enabling us to integrate directly with your customer’s personal and business accounts.

Yes, your customer will still have the option to submit paper accounts as they have done previously. However, this will take longer than Open Banking.

We want to deliver the quickest and safest lending journey for your customers, and new innovations like Open Banking allow us to do just that. Simply put, sharing data via this service will result in a much quicker turnaround than submitting paper documents.

We can connect with many other banks through Open Banking including: Halifax, Lloyds, Natwest, RBS, Barclays, HSBC, Nationwide, Santander, TSB, Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank, AIB Corporate, AIB Retail, Danske Business, First Direct, FTB Corporate, FTB Retail, Marks & Spencer, Monzo, Tesco Bank, Virgin Money, Revolut, Yorkshire Building Society, TransferWise, Starling, Tide and Think Money.

Since the 13th January 2018, all UK banks and building societies have been required by law to make their customer data available to regulated and licensed third parties. Your customer’s bank will have updated their T&Cs to reflect this.

You can visit the official Open Banking website. The likes of Money Savings Expert, Which?, Money Advice Service and the Financial Conduct Authority also have guides.

We will only use your customer’s information as required to support the provision and servicing of their loan. We can also offer several reassurances about the security of Open Banking:

• When they connect their account through Open Banking, their data will be protected via robust bank-grade security protocols, software and systems, all of which have been Government-backed in their development.
• Every provider that uses Open Banking must be authorised and regulated by the FCA, which is the organisation responsible for regulating financial services in the UK.
• It’s completely up to your customer whether they wish to opt in and give us permission to access their data.
• When your customer uses Open Banking, they’re fully covered by data protection laws and the Financial Ombudsman Service.