Thinking of the pressure that Open Banking and PSD2 create for banks reminded me of an inspiring project management course I attended some time ago. The trainer, who by the way had a lot of experience due to his project management roles in various companies, was showing us a short clip of the movie ‘Apollo 13’.
He asked us to watch the clip with the principles of agile project management in our minds. And what is the undeniably most famous quote from the Apollo 13 movie? Yes, you’re right: “Houston, we have a problem”.
This movie is a great example for starting a project with a lot of pressure and finding unusual solutions for problems. How many projects can you remember that started with “Department X, we have a problem”?
Open Banking could be the next disruption that will force financial institutions into high pressure projects, not only from a technical perspective, but also from a business perspective. Especially in the online world, acceptance for innovative payment channels is growing and consumers are requesting new innovative ways to pay and manage their accounts. We have already entered a new agile payments world – moving away from traditional approaches to real-time online payments.
On top of that, the requirements of the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) need to have been transposed into national law of European countries since January 2018. Financial institutions are required to offer access to bank accounts by providing third-party interfaces. Based on the current time schedule, PSD2 should come into effect by September 2019.
This puts a lot of pressure on European banks – which need to provide the right infrastructure on time, but also need to change their business strategy to become more digital. However, PSD2 is not only a regulation that organizations need to comply with, it is also the start in an open banking world that offers payment organizations the possibility to grow in the payments market.
Securing your growth is achievable by not only creating the legally required interfaces for third party providers, but also by implementing a holistic open banking strategy.
