The Business Case for Early Adoption in Open Finance

While doing something different to those around you can be scary, it also creates a whole host of opportunities, particularly when it comes to adopting and embracing open finance early. Here are 5 points you should include in your business case for adopting open finance, regardless of what other businesses in your country are doing. 

Market Leadership & Brand Building  

As the first to embrace Open Finance, you position your brand as an innovator and thought leader. Early adoption helps build trust and creates a “gold standard” image among customers and potential partners.

Strategic Partnerships 

Even if other banks aren’t on board yet, you can team up with agile fintechs, tech vendors, and service providers from adjacent industries. These alliances can help you develop new, innovative products that make your Open Finance initiative more attractive. For example, you might collaborate with a fintech company to build advanced credit scoring models or with a technology firm to develop AI-driven financial advisors.

Influencing the Ecosystem & Regulation  

Being an early mover gives you a seat at the table. You have the chance to shape standards and influence the regulatory framework before it’s finalized. Early adopters can provide feedback and even help draft guidelines that later benefit everyone.

You can create a sandbox environment to test and refine use cases, which can also serve as a proving ground for future regulatory compliance.

Playing a smart role in an Open Finance ecosystem is not an easy task , but doing it first will set some extra room for your experiences and trials.

Data Advantage & Innovative Product Development

With early access to a wider set of data across various sources, you can unlock insights that late adopters might miss. This data can power personalized offerings, predictive analytics, and automated financial management tools.

Use cases could extend beyond the usual ones, such as dynamic pricing models, fraud prevention mechanisms, or even customer segmentation tools that allow for hyper-targeted financial products. You define your own deadlines and priorities!

Monetization Through Ecosystem Services  

Great open APIs that power innovative fintech services can also create a new form of revenue. In fact, ahead of open banking regulation there is often more commercial “white space” to fill. Banks that move early can create new revenue streams through exposing APIs that give third parties the ability to access consent based data, payments and other services.

For market infrastructure players there is also a big opportunity through moving early.  Enabling the banks in a market to move quickly with open banking APIs by delivering robust infrastructure (or even acting as a Central Market Hub) can unlock new business models. A central market maker can help banks participate, unlock new revenues and in doing so create a sustainable “network effect” 

Be Proactive Not Reactive 

Early adoption of Open Finance isn’t just about keeping pace with innovation — it’s about seizing the chance to lead, influence, and shape the future of financial services. By moving early, you position your organisation to build a stronger brand, forge strategic partnerships, access richer data insights, and unlock new revenue streams through ecosystem services. 

Yes, there are risks in stepping out ahead of the pack, but the potential rewards far outweigh the challenges of adopting open finance early.

In a rapidly evolving landscape, standing still is not an option. Building your business case for early adoption today will ensure you’re not just reacting to change tomorrow. To find out more about how to become an early adopter, get in touch.