Open Banking

Open banking gives you more control over how you share your financial information and sending payments.

If you give authority to an authorised Third Party Provider (TPP) to do so, they'll be able to view your account information or make transactions on your behalf in a secure and standardised way.

Open banking covers all payment accounts, assuming you can manage these online or via a mobile application. You will be able to share your financial details, including transaction history and spending behaviour, with authorised TPPs.

What is a TPP?

If your account is accessible online, a TPP can provide you with additional services relating to your payment account. A TPP could:

Make payments from your account on your behalf, without the need to use your payment card
Allow you to view your accounts, regardless of provider, all in one place
Offer tools that help you analyse your transactions and spending habits
Carry out affordability checks

Not every TPP can provide these services – they must be authorised by law to do so.

You can search for authorised UK TPPs on the Financial Services register

How does a TPP access information about my accounts?

A TPP can only access your information with your permission.

A TPP will need your online banking login and security details to provide you with their service(s). If we receive any instructions from a TPP using your accurate details, we will treat this instruction as if it were from you.

If you choose to use a TPP, please be aware that the personal and banking information you share with them is valuable to fraudsters. There is some crucial safety advice to remember:

Be cautious when you receive seemingly random contact by telephone, email or via social media. Fraudsters will pretend to be legitimate companies, so please be careful when anyone requests your personal or banking information.
Always check (and double check) that the TPP you are going to provide your online banking details to is legitimate and authorised.
Don't disclose any personal or financial information if you don't know who you are talking to or suspect the provider isn't who they claim to be.
Make sure you understand and agree with the level of access you are providing to your account, what account data you will share, and how your information will be used.

If you wish to sign up to this service, you must contact regulated TPPs directly.

Information for TPP's

The Bank's implementation focuses on PSD2 regulatory compliance to enable access to online payment accounts by Account Information Service Providers (AISPs), Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs) or Card Based Payment Instruction Issuers (CBPIIs). Our APIs are being developed so that they follow the Open Banking standard specifications for Read/Write APIs.

To engage with us to use our APIs you will need to be authorised or registered, (as appropriate), by a competent authority, in the UK this is the FCA,

as an AISP, PISP or CBPII,
or to have applied to the FCA or a comparable competent authority for the relevant authorisation.

We will work with providers who meet the above criteria to onboard and access our Open Banking services. In preparation, TPPs can choose to enrol with the Open Banking Directory.

For more information on how to enrol with the Open Banking Directory please visit https://www.openbanking.org.uk/providers/directory/

The Co-operative Bank Open Banking Platform Overview