Banks and fintechs: how to develop a digital open banking approach for the bank’s future

Mutated market conditions, the advent of new players and digital technologies, and a significant regulatory push, are profoundly changing the banking industry. Banking business models may shift significantly from a pipeline, vertical, paradigm, to open banking models where modularity can be an opportunity for banks. Not only are the abovementioned factors representing a threat to the traditional model, but also they are spurring significant new opportunities to pursue new revenue streams. Those opportunities are exploited through new banking paradigms that entail higher levels of openness towards third parties and a crescent number of modular services bundled together. Models can go to mere compliance with the prescriptions of openness of PSD2, to the inclusion of new services, the opening of the banking core and data, and the aggregation of those within a platform experience. Value is created in platforms through economies of scope in production and innovation. This paper has explored the evolution of Fintech and Techfin in the market and the emergence of platform models in banking. It has investigated the evolution of that concept, also introducing an interesting banking case (BBVA), which gives several insights on the choices made toward a Banking-as-a-Platform model within the context of Fintech and Open Banking.