Latest activities OpenBankingProject.ch
OpenBankingProject.ch looks back on a phenomenal year. With Intrum, Oper Credits, PXL Vision, Post, PostFinance, Experian, DIDAS, and the University of St. Gallen, seven new members and one new partner joined the project. Furthermore, a study on Open Banking in Switzerland was conducted and published, which offered unique insights into the significance, the most important use cases and the relevance of Open Banking for individual companies and Switzerland as a whole. The workshop series on Customer Onboarding & KYC was successfully completed in May. In August, we started our Proof of Concept (PoC) with the aim of building a trust network for the exchange of identity and customer data based on the architecture approach of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). Last but not least, the third Open Banking Summit took place on 25th of August 2022 at Google Clouds in Zurich – a great event with many valuable insights.
Member PXL Vision (Elmar Reif, Head of Product)
Digitalisation has continuously driven the use of digital channels in most industries in recent years. Therefore, the demand for digital identity verification has also steadily increased. The use of AI and machine learning further improves the efficiency and quality of workflows and provides customers with a great user experience. Recently, however, there have been targeted hacker attacks of video identification processes (e.g. by the chaos computer club). PXL Vision filed a new patent in August to be able to specifically detect such manipulations. It also seems important to design the security level and the corresponding checks and thresholds in view of the criticality of the respective use cases. However, there will never be a 100% security, although this does not exist in the physical world either.
Member Swiss Open Wealth Association (Eric Salzmann, Founding Partner)
The Swiss Open Wealth Association (SOWA) is an association of various Swiss and Liechtenstein private banks that want to jointly provide innovative services for the wealth management of tomorrow. The clients are at the centre and should be advised holistically by wealth managers with the help of latest technologies and innovative, individualised services. In this way, private banks can position themselves as comprehensive partners in all areas and advise their clients in a sense of “beyond wealth”. Potential use cases, ideas and service enhancements go through an ideation journey in which the association partners discuss, validate, and mature the topics. One of SOWA’s current project is the targeted expansion of services for foundations to support them more adequately and sustainably.
Member Post (Marcel Eichmüller, Business & Solution Development)
Swiss Post is operating a pilot infrastructure based on the architecture concept Self-Sovereign Identity, a concept that will also be used for the Swiss Electronic ID. Together with their project partners, they optimise different cross-sectoral use cases and design them in favour of all involved stakeholders. A special focus lies on the clients, who gain sovereignty over their data and can share it in a convenient and secure way. Furthermore, the approach is based on a data minimisation approach, according to which only that information is forwarded to the examining party (verifier) which he really needs in his exact business case (e.g. a person is +18 years old instead of the exact date of birth). A first use case they are optimising right now is the ordering and submission of a confirmation of residence for the application of new students at their university or university of applied sciences. Thanks to the participation of all parties in the SSI Ecosystem, the digital proof (confirmation of residence) can be ordered and forwarded securely and conveniently by the student.
Guest contribution «Digital Self-Determination Network» (Roger Dubach, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs)
The Digital Self-Determination Network promotes innovation and self-determination in how data is used in Switzerland. In the current economic environment, there is insufficient realisation of the full potential of data, while at the same time, there is increasing distrust of data use or subsequent use. The Digital Self-Determination Network wants to resolve the conflicting demands for data use and data protection. To this end, it is working with representatives from all sectors to develop solutions for a future data use in which people and society are at the centre. Due to its consequent focus on the customer, Open Banking optimally contributes to the strategy of Switzerland for trustworthy data environments based on digital self-determination.
Panel discussion «Cross-sector networking and open banking in the interest of the customer»
The panel consisting of Elmar Reif (PXL Vision), Eric Salzmann (SOWA) and Bruno Kellenberger (KYC Spider) was moderated by Thomas Zerndt (BEI). How can banks use Open Banking to move closer to their customers? How does Open Banking support the expansion of banks into new business areas? What are the biggest opportunities and challenges of Open Banking? These and more questions were discussed by the panellists. What was clearly expressed, and mirrored the opinion of the previous presentations, is that companies need to work together to tap the full potential of the enormous masses of data that are available. This is the only way to offer customers an enhanced user experience and to maintain high data quality thanks to consistent data handling and proceeding standards. Furthermore, this creates the basis for collaborative business models and the proactively opening up one' s own business architecture enables opportune positioning for the fast-changing future.
Outlook OpenBankingProject.ch
Together with our partners and members, we are looking forward to an eventful and ambitious 2023. Based on our study Open Banking in Switzerland, further use cases will be tackled to harmonise and standardise them for the sake of all stakeholders. Our trust network focussing on customer onboarding & KYC will be continuously expanded by further use cases and an additional proof of concept in the core business area of banks such as mortgage lending will be launched. One of the next highlights in 2023 will be fourth Open Banking Summit, which will take place next year on 24th of August in Zurich.
We are already looking forward to hosting our next members' event on Wednesday, 8th of March 2023. If you are not yet one of our members, please feel free to contact us here!