Australian consumers will be able to easily download a personal and reusable copy of their bank account data for the first time thanks to a partnership between SISS Data Services (SDS) and UK technology platform digi.me.
The partnership will leverage SISS’s expertise in providing bank-compliant and secure data feeds, which cover 80 per cent of the country’s banks, and digi.me’s unique personal data platform, which allows individuals to download their transactions into a secure cloud library that only they own and can access, and then share slices of it in return for personalised services or offers.
The deal will also boost FinTech innovation in the country, which is being hampered by open banking principles seen elsewhere not yet being adopted, causing companies to resort to insecure data scraping to access customer data for new services. Bank-compliant data being downloaded directly by individuals cuts out this problem entirely, as businesses can go direct to them to request it, and receive a complete, normalised, private and secure financial data feed from the individual using digi.me’s local API.
Digi.me’s Founder and Executive Chairman Julian Ranger, who is currently on the Lord Mayor’s FinTech Trade Mission to Australia, has already visited the country several times in the lead up to the SDS partnership to consult directly with the Australian banking sector and the Federal Government.
He said: “The ability to reuse your own banking data in financial and other applications and to do so with your consent with complete privacy, allows transformational services to be provided to you.
“All of this is now enabled by our partnership with SDS who can open pathways to over 80 per cent of Australian banking data with the highest standards of trust.
“This will be a huge boost to innovation in Australia, which can also be exported worldwide, which means everyone from the consumer, businesses, the economy overall as well as society and the Government wins and will benefit.”
SDS CEO Grant Augustin said Ranger’s vast background in US military internet operability was a key factor in getting the deal off the ground.
He said: “Confirming key functionality around chain of custody, data taxonomy and the highest security criteria was paramount to working with the digi.me platform. Digi.me’s unique architecture where the data is held by the individual, and digi.me does not see, touch or hold data ever, and its security design coupled with our API technology, exudes a best practice approach towards Open Banking that meets the highest standards required for transiting consumer data”.
Charles Bowman, the Lord Mayor of London, said: “Digi.me is providing the perfect example of the international growth I want to see from British tech companies in the next few years. I look forward to seeing digi.me’s growth in Australia in the years to come.”
The deal, which was brokered by digi.me’s Australian partner ID Exchange, has been formally signed and Australians will be able to start downloading a copy of their own bank data via the SISS interfaces through digi.me from April.