SISS now Active Data Recipient for Open Banking
Australia’s largest independent provider of direct bank data feeds and Accredited Data Recipient for Open Banking, SISS Data Services, today announced it has completed ACCC Conformance Testing to become an “Active” Data Recipient under the Consumer Data Right (CDR).
“With more than 2.4 million Australian businesses needing secure and reliable banking data each day, completing this exhaustive ACCC process is a significant milestone for our company,” said SISS Founder and Chief Executive Grant Augustin.
“Thousands of Australians rely on SISS for the secure and reliable delivery of their banking data into the accounting and other systems they use. We have been a leader in secure data collection for over 10 years through our direct bank data feeds, which are supported by all major Australian banks,” Augustin said.
“Now, with CDR, we can expand the range of banks and data we support and so help more Aussies make better financial decisions, based on accurate, reliable and secure data,” he said.
The ACCC’s Conformance Test Suite forms an integral part of the Consumer Data Right on-boarding process, allowing participants to test their compliance with the Consumer Data Standards and Consumer Data Right Register design. The ACCC testing takes place in a secure environment without exposing consumer data, nor interfering with live software products and brands.
Augustin said compared to other developed economies, the CDR regime has been slow to start in Australia as many fintechs seeking to access customer data through the much heralded ‘open banking’ scheme have found that the costs of connecting are prohibitive.
He said a good example of this is in the accounting software industry that represents millions of businesses across Australia that need accurate reliable access to banking data. Open Banking, at present, is not the panacea the industry was hoping for, due to high costs of compliance, and limitations on how data can be moved between accounting applications, Augustin said.
For now, direct “closed banking” data feeds remain the gold standard, however, recent regulatory changes have sought to enable Open Banking to provide a viable addition to existing infrastructure, he said.
Augustin said SISS and other Data Recipient intermediaries use economies of scale to make the process of connecting to CDR easier and more affordable for fintechs.
He said SISS, as the largest independent provider of direct bank data feeds in Australia, is uniquely placed to offer fintechs the widest range of data from closed and open banking sources, but also to leverage significant economies of scale as the long-standing provider of bank data services to various fintechs and software platforms.
