COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT REPORT Accompanying the document Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a framework for Financial Data Access and amending Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010, (EU) No 1094/2010, (EU) No 1095/2010 and (EU) 2022/2554
Date: 2023-06-28
Institutions: Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, European Commission
Subjects: access to information, data protection, data sharing, disclosure of information, exchange of information, financial institution, financial legislation, financial services, information service, personal data

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 28.6.2023  SWD(2023) 230 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT REPORT  Accompanying the document Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council  on a framework for Financial Data Access and amending Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010, (EU) No 1094/2010, (EU) No 1095/2010 and (EU) 2022/2554 {COM(2023) 360 final} - {SEC(2023) 255 final} - {SWD(2023) 224 final}  
 
 
Need for action 

In the financial sector and beyond, there is a technology-driven trend towards greater use of 
data and data sharing. In accordance with the  digital finance strategy published in 2020, the 
promotion  of  data-driven  finance  is  also  high  on  the  Commission's  agenda.  The  data 
economy, driven by the production and use of data, has significant growth potential. Among 
the various sectors, financial services are the biggest user of data in the EU, with wide links to 
other  sectors.  Unlocking  further  innovative  potential  in  this  sector  is  therefore  key  for  the 
success of the Commission’s wider data strategy.  

In  spite  of  the  significant  potential,  many  innovations  are  hindered  by  the  fact  that,  beyond 
payment  accounts  covered  by  the  revised  Payment  Services  Directive,  financial  services 
customers  do  not  have  effective  control  over  their  data.  This  makes  it  difficult  for  them  to 
share  the  data  with  other  providers  who  could  have  used  it  to  provide  data-driven  financial 
and information services to customers. There are a number of reasons for this: first, customers 
lack trust and therefore hesitate to share their data. Second, even if customers would like to 
share their data, this is difficult in practice, notably due to the unclear legal situation over data 
users’  access  to  such  data.  Third,  customer  data  and  data  interfaces  in  the  financial  sector 
beyond  payment  accounts  are  rarely  accessible  and  if  they  are,  they  are  largely  not 
standardised,  rendering  data  processing  more  costly.  Finally,  data  owners  lack  incentives  to 
develop high-quality interfaces that meet data users’ operational business requirements.  

As a consequence, it is more difficult for new market entrants and smaller innovative service 
providers to offer tailored products and services that could better fit specific customer needs, 
while consumers cannot access these innovative services and will pay higher fees for services 
due to  limited competition.  In addition,  existing barriers prevent  firms,  especially small  and 
medium-sized  enterprises  (SMEs),  from  benefiting  from  better,  more  convenient  and 
automated financial services. These barriers also perpetuate suboptimal customer experience 
at financial institutions by slowing down their digital transformation, and face third-party data 
users with lost business opportunities. For the economy as a whole, this puts a break on the 
adoption of data-driven business models, resulting in lower private investments, lower take-up 
innovative services, and a general lack of trust and confidence in data sharing. 

The problems are common to all EU Member States, and since the holders and potential users 
of financial data in the internal market for financial services often operate in several Member 
States, it is unlikely that the problems can be solved by Member States alone. Moreover, the 
current EU legal framework insufficiently addresses the challenges outlined above. While the 
EU has adopted several pieces of legislation that apply across all sectors of the economy in 
the context of the European data strategy, these still need to be complemented at sectoral level 
in  order to  reach their full effect.  New sectoral  rules in  EU financial services are needed to 
enable  scalable  and  more  efficient  business  models  that  can  take  full  advantage  of  the  EU 
single market, with the aim of giving customers – whether consumers or businesses – greater 
control over how their financial data is accessed and used. 

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Policy options 

Various policy options emerged during the preparation of this impact assessment. The policy 
options  also  took  account  of  the  work  of  the  Commission  Expert  Group  on  the  European 
Financial  Data  Space  and  of  stakeholder  feedback  received  during  the  public  and  targeted 
consultations  on  open  finance.  The  analysed  policy  options  are  grouped  by  specific 
objectives, which were formulated in  response to  the identified problem drivers, as follows: 
(A) enhance customer trust in data sharing in the financial sector; (B) oblige data holders to 
share  customer  data  with  data  users;  (C)  promote  standardisation  of  customer  data  and 
interfaces;  and  (D)  promote  implementation  of  high-quality  interfaces  for  customer  data 
sharing.  

The  options  were  analysed  in  the  light  of  their  effectiveness  in  achieving  the  specific 
objectives,  their  efficiency  in  terms  of  the  associated  cost,  and  their  coherence  with  the 
existing EU regulatory framework in the area of data sharing.  

Impacts of the preferred option 

As  a  result  of  a  thorough  analysis,  the  following  policy  option  bundle  was  found  to  be 
preferable: 

  Require  market  participants  to  provide  customers  with  open  finance  permission 
dashboards, set eligibility rules on access to customer data and empower the European 
supervisory  authorities  to  issue  guidelines  on  personal  data  use  perimeters  (Option 
A.3) 

  Mandate access for data users to selected customer data sets across the financial sector 

(Option B.2) 

  Require  market  participants  to  develop  common  standards  for  customer  data  and 
interfaces  concerning  data  that  are  subject  to  mandatory  access  under  the  specific 
objective B, as part of financial data sharing schemes (Option C.1) 

  Require  data  holders  to  put  in  place  application  programming  interfaces  (APIs)  in 
exchange  for  compensation,  implementing  the  common  standards  for  customer  data 
and interfaces developed as part of financial data sharing schemes under objective C 
and require scheme members to agree on contractual liability (Option D.3)  

The open finance policy would have a positive impact on society and the environment, as well 
as on fundamental rights and SMEs. Customers willing to share their data would benefit from 
new products  and services that would improve their economic outcomes. At the same time, 
the carefully defined scope of this initiative would exclude data sets with the highest risk of 
financial  exclusion  of  vulnerable  consumers  outright.  Furthermore,  open  finance  permission 
dashboards,  combined  with  eligibility  rules  and  personal  data  use  perimeters,  would  protect 
customers from any other potential negative impacts on data protection and privacy rights.  

Customer data would only be shared at the request of the customer and in accordance with the 
EU  General  Data  Protection  Regulation  (GDPR)  in  case  of  personal  data,  thus  increasing 
overall customer confidence in data sharing. Data holders would be required to provide access 
to customer data sets from across the financial sector that have high added value for data users 

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and  pose  low  risk  to  customers  in  terms  of  financial  exclusion.  This  would  enable  greater 
competition,  better  access  to  financial  services,  and  a  better  customer  experience  through 
automation. Requiring market participants to adhere to a system for developing common data 
and interface standards will affect data holders, data users and customers alike, and facilitate 
direct  connectivity between  data holders and users, thereby  reducing the  cost  of data access 
and processing.  

The right of the data holders to demand reasonable compensation for providing standardised 
technical  interfaces  would  provide  them  with  clear  incentives  to  make  the  necessary 
investment in good quality interfaces and speed up industry adoption. While data holders will 
have  to  invest  in  technical  interfaces,  the  cost  of  setting  them  up  will  be  passed  on  to  data 
users over time. By limiting the level of this compensation in line with the provisions set out 
in the Data Act proposal, which cap it at cost in the case of data users that are SMEs, the risk 
of undesirable anticompetitive effects is kept in check. 

SMEs,  which  can  be  either  data  users  or  customers,  would  benefit  from  the  open  finance 
framework  in  both  those  capacities.  As  customers,  their  security  and  confidence  in  data 
exchange would be strengthened and they would be able to access more innovative services, 
which could reduce their costs and contribute to their competitiveness.  As data users, SMEs 
would bear the cost of providing open finance permission dashboards and licensing for access 
to customer data, while innovative services could increase their efficiency and standardisation 
of  data  would  open  up  new  business  opportunities.  The  initiative  is  expected  to  facilitate 
market entry of innovative start-ups that offer new types of services involving new business 
models.   

While the impact  of the initiative will be monitored as of its entry into force, an evaluation 
should be carried out no earlier than 3 years after its implementation. In this way, the results 
will be based on a sufficient period of observation. 

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