The FCA has published the highlights from an event it held in Leeds in late October, in which the Chancellor and the FCA discussed various growth initiatives, such as the concierge, scale-up and PAS services, and invited breakout groups to discuss innovative solutions to unlock regional growth opportunities, focusing on financial inclusion, digital identity and open banking and finance.
Key challenges that participants identified included:
- lack of appropriate data to support good outcomes;
- continued fragmentation and therefore unnecessary cost in KYC frameworks;
- continuing concerns around data privacy and interoperability;
- limited awareness within SMEs of open banking tools, allied to perceived regulatory complexity and costs.
Post-Sprint, the contributors said they would:
- help raise awareness and were interested in starting a “shadow data bank” for the region;
- work together to develop interoperable digital identity solutions and encourage cross-sector pilots; and
- run a pilot to test open finance technology.