From promise to practice: shaping open finance policy with our Smart Data Accelerator

UKFCAPublishes Interim Findings from Smart Data Accelerator

On 29 April 2026, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a blog post disclosing interim findings from its "Smart Data Accelerator" programme in the open finance space. Launched in September 2025, the initiative is designed to validate open finance solutions through a digital testing environment and provide empirical evidence to inform policy development. This disclosure comes just two weeks after theFCAreleased its open finance roadmap on 14 April 2026.

Two TechSprints Covering Mortgages and SME Lending

According to the FCA, between 17 November 2025 and 12 February 2026, the regulator partnered with data infrastructure firm Raidiam to conduct two TechSprint events. Seventeen firms participated, leveraging synthetic data to develop technology prototypes focused on two priority areas: mortgages andSMElending.

In the mortgage workstream, participating firms developed solutions targeting the following objectives:

• Enhancing borrower readiness by enabling consumers to assess their eligibility and affordability prior to submitting a mortgage application.

• Supporting more informed overpayment decisions through personalised recommendations derived from shared financial data.

• Facilitating long-term financial planning by consolidating data held across disparate financial products into a single unified view.

In the SME lending workstream, the TechSprints focused on addressing the following challenges:

• Improving cash flow management for small businesses by enhancing financial health visibility through standardised, consent-driven data sharing.

• Developing tools to assess business growth potential and lending readiness, enabling earlier identification of financial distress and improved business planning.

• Exploring reusable credentials and authorisation wallet mechanisms to accelerate trust establishment and data portability.

Key Finding: Open Finance Is Evolving from Isolated Use Cases Towards an Ecosystem

In its blog post, the FCA highlighted a pivotal trend emerging from the TechSprints — open finance is evolving towards an ecosystem model, rather than remaining a collection of standalone applications. Multiple participating firms utilised the same core datasets to build end-to-end service journeys for different customer segments and use cases, rather than developing bespoke, single-purpose products.

The FCA observed that the key to value creation lies not merely in accessing more data, but in integrating, structuring, and applying trusted data to optimise financial decision-making for consumers, businesses, and the broader market. Financial activities that previously required multiple standalone products can now be consolidated into a unified user experience.

Reusable Data Packages as the Foundation for Scalable Services

Another significant outcome from the TechSprints concerns the value of "reusable data packages." Firms combined the same underlying datasets in different configurations to deliver more insightful and targeted solutions to their clients. The FCA identified the following core advantages of the reusable data model:

1. Data functions as contextual intelligence for deeper customer understanding, rather than as a single-use commodity.

2. Product development benefits from greater integration and interoperability, enabling firms to scale their service offerings more rapidly.

3. Unified data standards, digital verification, and trusted infrastructure collectively lay the technical groundwork forAI-driven personalised services.

The FCA emphasised that realising these benefits is contingent upon the concurrent development of robust data standards, digital verification mechanisms, and trusted infrastructure. Without these foundational elements, neither data reusability nor cross-scenario portability can be achieved in practice.

Open Finance Roadmap: Key Milestones at a Glance

Drawing on the open finance roadmap published by the FCA on 14 April 2026 (with a planning horizon extending to 2030), the following are the key milestones — both completed and forthcoming:

Open Banking Data Underpins Expansion Expectations

The FCA's open finance strategy builds upon the proven foundations of UK open banking. According to data cited in the FCA roadmap, UK open banking currently has approximately 17 million users, covering nearly one-third of the adult population, with 145 active third-party providers. In 2025, open banking payment volumes grew 53% year-on-year. A joint study by Open Banking Limited andEYestimates that the combined economic impact of open banking and open finance could reach £7.4 billion per annum over the next five years. Separate research by McKinsey suggests that open finance could contribute 1% to 1.5% of UKGDPby 2030.

On the legislative front, the Data Use and Access Act 2025 has received Royal Assent, establishing the legal framework for sector-specific smart data schemes, with open finance positioned as one of the first critical applications in financial services. HM Treasury is expected to introduce legislation in 2026 granting the FCA new rulemaking powers over open banking.

Perspectives from FCA Leadership and Industry Figures on Open Finance

David Geale, FCA Executive Director of Payments and Digital Finance, stated at the roadmap launch on 14 April 2026:

"Open finance has the potential to transform the way people interact with financial services. By giving consumers and businesses greater control over their financial data, we can help them access credit, secure better deals, and receive more tailored support — while driving innovation, competition, and economic growth."

Adam Jackson, Chief Strategy Officer at Innovate Finance, commented on the same day:

"Just as open banking gave rise to a generation of UK fintech companies, open finance can catalyse a new wave of innovation. By unlocking high-quality data in a manner that safeguards consumer trust, open finance can serve as the foundation for the widespread adoption of agentic AI."

Nicole Sandler, Head of Enterprise and Regulatory Affairs at theCFIT, stressed the importance of a coherent, cross-departmental and cross-government approach — essential for moving beyond the relatively limited scope of open banking to achieve secure, seamless sharing of data across the full spectrum of financial activities for both businesses and individuals.

Challenges and Uncertainties

The FCA acknowledged in its blog post that the benefits of open finance are unlikely to materialise all at once, nor are they expected to be evenly distributed across the market. The regulator identified several critical considerations for the implementation process:

• Different use cases will mature at varying speeds, with certain segments likely to achieve commercial viability earlier than others.

• In some scenarios, meaningful benefits will only emerge when multiple enabling factors — including data standards, infrastructure, user adoption, and trust mechanisms — are simultaneously in place.

• Firms face concerns around data privacy risks and compliance costs during implementation, necessitating close and early collaboration between regulators and the industry.

• Internationally, the EU's Financial Data Access Regulation (FIDA) remains in trilogue negotiations, while the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Section 1033 Personal Financial Data Rights rule is mired in legal challenges — reflecting divergent timelines across major economies.

Next Phase: PolicySprint and Regulatory Framework Development

The FCA announced that in June 2026, it will convene a PolicySprint on mortgages and open finance, bringing together regulators, industry participants, consumer groups, and technology experts to define the specific regulatory conditions under which open finance can improve consumer access to mortgage products. Concurrently, the PRISM Working Group is developing a reusable assessment framework to quantify the impact of various open finance use cases on consumer outcomes, market competition, economic growth, and innovation, with a report expected in Q3 2026.

The FCA has articulated a clear closed-loop pathway linking experimentation, technical insights, and policymaking, positioning the Smart Data Accelerator as the core mechanism driving this cycle. In its blog post, the regulator stated that navigating the landscape of challenges and opportunities in open finance demands a fundamental shift in approach — one that brings regulators, industry, and innovators together to translate vision into practice.

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