Citi named first corporate bank to enroll as registered third party payment provider for open banking in the UK
Published: June 04, 2018
Inclusion in directory enables Citi to launch new payment and collection services for clients
London - Citi has today announced that is has successfully enrolled as a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) on the UK Open Banking Directory, becoming the first corporate bank to do so. Inclusion in the directory will allow Citi to begin piloting new payment and collection services for clients.
Ireti Samuel-Ogbu, EMEA head payments and receivables, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi commented: “We see Open Banking as a significant development in the banking landscape in Europe and increasingly in other regions as regulators seek to drive competition and innovation in financial services. Open Banking in the UK is particularly attractive to us and our clients as it enables collections with open APIs standardized and live across the Competition and Markets Authority nine banks. Citi continues to work with the UK Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) and regulators around the globe to drive positive development in open banking and to deliver payment system innovations that work for both consumer and business users.”
Open Banking in the UK, which went live in January 2018, requires the nine largest UK banks to publish open APIs, enabling regulated third party providers to access bank accounts securely and with account holder consent, via open APIs. The directory is part of a wider shift in the global banking landscape from batch processing to real-time, hyper connected banking – an era of real-time payments and collections, and banking systems becoming accessible through APIs.
Imran Gulamhuseinwala, Trustee of the Open Banking Implementation Entity commented: “We are delighted to have Citi enrolled in our UK Open Banking Directory and are excited by their vision to leverage open banking to create new payment services for the UK market. As a leading global bank, Citi’s engagement is a strong endorsement of the UK Open Banking initiative and we look forward to further collaboration to develop the open banking ecosystem.”