UK - Konsentus announced today that it has expanded its product range to help accelerate the digital transformation journey from open banking to open finance.

Konsentus Verify, the leading open banking fraud and risk management service, is ready to support open finance.

Open banking is the first step towards a data sharing society, but to drive long-term success, security and trust must be embedded into the ‘open’ framework. Konsentus has responded against a backdrop of increasing risk and fraud concerns, brought about by the expanding open data economy, to enable Konsentus Verify to validate open finance participants – both regulated and non-regulated organisations.

In addition to checking EU and UK regulated payment service providers, Konsentus Verify has been enabled to validate data from open finance schemes, premium (API) schemes, and trusted organisations to enable safe and secure access to data and payment services.

The world-class technology solution has been built to adapt and scale in response to the complex and changing regulatory landscape. Konsentus Verify for Open Finance brings together complex and disparate data from multiple regulated and non-regulated sources into a single platform. This enables a Financial Institution to easily verify in real-time the identity and current authorisation status of a third party through a single interface, regardless of the authorisation scheme.

Supporting new open finance schemes can be a substantial investment for financial institutions. Being able to rely on an existing solution that keeps pace with the evolving open data economy and its associated opportunities enables financial institutions to benefit from significant cost savings and peace of mind.

This announcement follows on from the launch of the Konsentus Open Banking Hub which provides open finance schemes and national entities with an end-to-end solution delivering all the infrastructure services required to supply and secure centralised open data ecosystems.

The acceleration of the open data economy demands clarity, visibility, security, and trust of information as financial institutions look to extend their ‘open’ service offerings.

To provide visibility of all ecosystem participants, the services they offer and to facilitate open communication, Konsentus has established the Konsentus Transparency Directory. Available from Q3 2021, this central data service will enable participants to easily find the required information to connect and engage with each other and their open banking services.

The Directory brings together developer portals, API information and communication details into a single, searchable service comprising:

  • Financial Institution Data: Technical and contact details of bank Developer Portals and their APIs
  • Fintech Data: Legal, commercial, and communication details of third parties offering open banking services

These solutions reduce exposure to risk and opportunity for fraud by providing participants with up-to-date information on both regulated and non-regulated organisations. Alongside this, they provide the ability to validate participants and their authorisation status in real-time enabling organisations to conduct their open banking and open finance business safely and securely.

Mike Woods, CEO, Konsentus, commented: "In just six months since the acquisition of Open Banking Europe from PRETA, we have consolidated our collective market knowledge and capabilities to launch a number of solutions into the market that will really unlock the value of open banking and open finance. Our fast-growing customer base, which now spans 23 countries, has helped us shape these new solutions and we are excited by the opportunity of being able to deploy them in other international markets into which we are expanding.

The extended capabilities of Konsentus Verify, a component of the Open Banking Hub, and the Konsentus Transparency directory ensure that as the regulation changes, transparency in the ecosystem alongside trusted identity and authorisation checking can continue to take place without new systems and process being required."