HSBC has further demonstrated its commitment to Open Finance by supporting the government’s new taskforce.

Earlier this week economic secretary Bim Afolami announced a new industry-led Open Finance Taskforce chaired by the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), which was launched last year to address barriers to growth in the UK FinTech industry.

The new taskforce was one of the recommendations outlined in the CFIT's Blueprint Report, which was published in February.

In a statement, HSBC UK’s head of strategic growth, partnership & innovation Will Turner told FStech that it is actively engaged with furthering recommendations made by the CFIT, adding that it is contributing thought leadership to the new taskforce.

Other recommendations in the Blueprint Report include taking forward Proofs of Concepts (POCs) built by its industry-wide coalition with Citizens Advice and HSBC.

“The POC demonstrates that using open finance data can lead to faster and easier access to credit, with a significantly higher number of SMEs receiving a positive decision when applying for credit, and a reduction in the number of SME businesses who do not complete the application journey,” said Turner. “It could have a positive impact on the wider UK economy, and may boost UK GDP by up to £30.5 billion, if SMEs have the ability to share currently inaccessible datasets with financial services firms under the CFIT consent framework.”

On Monday the CFIT said that it had been engaged in discussions with various partners about how its collaborative POCs can be scaled, adding that it expects to make an announcement on this in the near future.

HSBC said that its work on Open Finance so far builds on its commitment to support UK businesses through initiatives such as its £15 billion fund dedicated to financing SMEs across the country.

“HSBC UK recognises the vital role played by SMEs across the UK economy, both in the creation of jobs and upskilling of our workforce," continued HSBC UK's Will Turner. "That is why we backed CFIT’s coalition programme and remain committed to furthering Open Finance initiatives that will enable better decision-making and customer experiences for qualified SMEs."

The new taskforce has a mandate to identify and prioritise more use cases for Open Finance, data sets to be unlocked, and APIs to be created in order to facilitate better SME finance availability.

It will also look to identify commercially viable approaches to incentivise businesses to securely share their financial data.

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