To be a leader in digital and innovation Barclays becomes the first UK High Street Bank to allow customers to bring their current account into its mobile banking app.
Announced on September 12th customers who have personal or business accounts with Lloyd’s, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, RBS, NatWest, Nationwide, or Santander can choose to quickly and securely view their balances and transactions when they log into the Barclays mobile banking app.
This new feature runs on an open banking API technology. This technology according to Barclays is designed with customer security at a hart and customers will also be able to view all their data permission history for added security and peace of mind. In addition to safety, Barclay looks to make this customer experience seamless by allowing them merely selecting there are other banks from within the Barclays mobile banking app at which point they will be securely redirected to there other bank’s app or online banking page to choose which accounts if any they would like to connect with. Once the account connection is made the user then can disconnect the account at any time.
When asked about the app improvements Catherine McGrath, Managing Director of Retail Banking at Barclays stated, “Today, lots of people have current accounts with more than one bank, so keeping track of your finances can be tricky as well as time-consuming. Our new feature is designed to solve this problem, offering a simple and secure way to get a clearer picture of your finances, all in the place six million of our customers already go to do their banking.”
As more UK Banks start to adapt and enable this open banking API technology into their platforms, US financial institutions should pay very close attention to consumer behaviors and trends as they could provide critical data on opportunities and threats of enabling this new technology.
