At an Open Banking Expo roundtable in partnership with Equifax at Open Banking Expo UK & Europe 2024, participants shared their insights, including success stories and pain points when it comes to onboarding customers during the payments process.
The roundtable, ‘What if, you could make Open Banking payments smarter?’, was co-hosted by Carl Riches, sales director at Equifax, Brad Davies, product manager for Open Banking and ESG at Equifax, and Richard Seal, business development director at Equifax.
In his introduction, Riches pointed to the opportunity to add value to the checkout experience, by automating the credit risk journey and pre-populating customer information using Open Banking.
L-R: Equifax’s Carl Riches and Brad Davies
Riches gave roundtable attendees a demo of Apply+, which uses the range of current account data that Equifax holds to link current account data to an individual in real-time, pre-populating name, date of birth and address on an online application form – without the end customer being asked to type in any of this information.
He said that Equifax is working on reducing the burden on consumers, particularly given that studies have shown one-third of consumers drop off when asked to complete actions outside the platform they are using.
Those taking part in the roundtable identified where customers are dropping out of the payments journey and why this might be a result of variability and lack of standardisation when it comes to bank and payment interfaces.
Representatives from leading Open Banking and payment service providers considered the different ways this sort of pre-population could improve the onboarding process where an upfront payment was an inherent part of the customer journey, and concluded that finding the right place in the journey is key.
The roundtable participants also discussed customer consent and, specifically, how frequently they should have to provide consent without making the end-to-end journey longer.
End user transparency and privacy concerns were also talking points during the roundtable discussion.
Those taking part in the roundtable, on Day One of Open Banking Expo UK & Europe in London this month, observed that credit card repayments are where they see most uptake of Open Banking payments.
Further reading: Equifax UK and OneID work together on new onboarding solution
