Adatree, a SaaS provider of turnkey Open Banking technology, has signed the largest ever bank and fintech partnership which will enable a consortium of 20 Australian banks and credit unions to enter into the Consumer Data Right.
Adatree has been engaged to ensure the consortium, which include BankVic, Police Credit Union, Hume Bank and Bank of US and provides services across Australia including into regional areas, shares data in a consistent and compliant way aligned with the CDR requirements.
CEO Jill Berry says the mutuals will prepare to share data using the Adatree Industry Sandbox, which is the developer testing environment for the Data Recipient Platform.
“This next maturation of the Consumer Data Right Regime is vital as it takes data sharing beyond the major banks to those banks and mutuals that service Australian communities and regional areas and begins to open the doors to increased competition and innovation,” Ms Berry says.
“Adatree is proud to partner with this consortium to ensure they are able to share consumer data in a compliant and consistent way.”
The consortium says it is “investing in the right technology”
QBANK, a member owned financial institution for Queensland Police and Emergency Services, Head of Technology & Transformation Trevor McNamara said the bank was committed to making investments in the right technology to continue to compete in a CDR market.
“As a Data Holder under the new Consumer Data Right legislation (Open Banking), QBANK is pleased to be partnering with Adatree to assist in delivering a testing platform and expert Open Banking knowledge,” Mr McNamara said.
“The knowledge and platform provided by Adatree will assist the Bank in ensuring the full functionality of Open Banking is available to our members while maintaining a high degree of security and privacy controls to protect our members personal information.”
“Overcoming technology challenges”
Bank Vic Chief Information Officer Scott Wall says “the Consumer Data Rights Open Banking legislation is a major benefit to Australian consumers”.
“But the technology challenges of delivering a secure and well tested Open Banking service are significant,” Mr Wall says.
“To achieve this we needed a partner who could provide us with a testing sandbox and expert knowledge of the requirements of Open Banking.
“As CDR is a new initiative there are few suppliers in the market and developing our own testing sandbox would have been expensive and time consuming, introducing considerable risk to our project.
“Adatree’s white-label Data Recipient solution proved to be a great platform to support our Data Holder testing as it provides a Register and full ADR capabilities to perform real world testing. Just as importantly it came with a great team – flexible and helpful in understanding our requirements and moving us forward.”
Police Credit Union Executive Manager Technology and Data Ben Stephenson says it is committed to delivering a secure and complete solution, which created a fundamental need for an experienced testing partner.
“We are pleased to be partnering with Adatree to assist in our software testing to ensure we deliver all the functionality of Open Banking to our customers, whilst maintaining privacy and security at all times,” Mr Stephenson says.
“Having already achieved Accredited Data Recipient status, Adatree’s knowledge and experience will be invaluable to our continued Open Banking journey.”
The full consortium includes: BankVic, Bank of Us, The Mac Credit Union, QBank, Police Credit Union, Community First Credit Union, Transport Mutual Credit Union, LCU (Laboratories Credit Union), Hume Bank, Family First Credit Union, CMCU (Central Murray Credit Union), South West Credit Union, Geelong Bank, CWCU (Central West Credit Union), Unity Bank Orange Credit Union, Woolworths Team Bank, Illawarra Credit Union, Auswide Bank and WAW Credit Union.
