The UK Open Banking Standard is the technical and operational specification developed by the Open Banking Implementation Entity, now Open Banking Limited — read/write account and payment initiation APIs, a FAPI-profiled security model, a directory of participants, and the operational guidelines that make one implementation interchangeable with another.
Open Banking Standard
The UK Open Banking Standard is what the CMA’s remedy turned into in practice. Where the order said the nine largest banks must let customers share data and initiate payments, the standard says exactly how — down to the resource names, the security profile and the directory a third party resolves participants through.
- Read/write, not read-only - Account information and payment initiation, which is the substantive difference from Australia’s CDR and the reason UK open banking produced a payments industry.
- FAPI-profiled security - A hardened OAuth and OpenID Connect profile, with mTLS-bound tokens and strong client authentication as the floor.
- A directory - Participants are enrolled and resolvable, so a third party can discover who is in the scheme rather than negotiating bilaterally.
- Operational guidelines - Availability and performance reporting alongside the technical specification, which is unusual and worth noting.
The State of UK Banking APIs found the standard’s fingerprints all over the data. Discoverability averages 96.4 across the focus set and Regulatory Posture reaches 83.0 — the highest reading of that facet anywhere in the series — because when a standard says where the contract lives and what security profile guards it, sixty providers put it there. What the standard did not do is produce differentiation: contract quality sits at 50.9, because the OpenAPI every bank publishes is the standard’s, not the bank’s. That is the recurring shape of a mandate — it delivers existence, and leaves quality to the institution.
Referenced in API Evangelist papers
This standard shows up in my published research. These reports read the machine-readable evidence provider by provider — and put this standard in the context of a real sector.
The State of UK Banking APIs
The standard behind the highest Regulatory Posture reading in the series — 83.0 — and behind a discoverability average of 96.4, because the contract is always exactly where the standard says it will be.
Governed by these regulations
A standard is the machine-readable contract; a regulation is the law that requires it. These are the regulations that mandate or drive this standard, catalogued at regulations.apievangelist.com.
CMA Open Banking Order
The remedy that compelled the nine largest UK banks to implement it.
