Open banking is no longer just a regulatory experiment; it is rapidly becoming a core pillar of the UK’s financial infrastructure and growth agenda. A new independent economic analysis, commissioned by Open Banking Limited (OBL) and conducted by EY, has quantified this economy-wide impact for the very first time.
The research finds that the consent-based data-sharing framework has already delivered an estimated £8.3billion in cumulative economic benefits to date. Looking to the future, the long-term annual opportunity across the UK economy could be significantly larger, reaching up to £43billion per year at full maturity and adoption.
Driving SME productivity and consumer financial health
Even in the medium term, the growth trajectory is steep. The analysis projects that annual economic benefits could reach £7.4billion within the next five years as adoption continues to scale seamlessly across payments, savings, lending, and cloud accounting.
For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), reducing the cost of administration and lowering transaction costs releases valuable time to focus on growth rather than paperwork. This surge in automation and efficiency is expected to drive the development of new, innovative products, generating an estimated annual GDP uplift of £2.3billion within the next five years.
Simultaneously, open banking-powered tools are helping everyday consumers manage and save their money more effectively while actively accessing fairer finance options. By enabling people to save more and reduce unnecessary living costs, this improved consumer financial management is estimated to deliver a further annual boost to UK GDP of £2.5billion over the same five-year period.
A maturing financial ecosystem
The UK’s open banking ecosystem has reached a critical point of maturity, currently boasting more than 17.51 million live user connections across the country. The infrastructure is supported by a growing network of 145 authorised third-party providers. Furthermore, consumer usage is accelerating; in January 2026 alone, open banking payments rose by 4.3 per cent month-on-month, totalling 36.04 million transactions.
Henk Van Hulle, CEO of Open Banking Limited, emphasized the vital role the technology already plays in modern society. He noted that by helping consumers manage their money better and enabling businesses to operate more efficiently, open banking is contributing meaningfully to economic growth, which is a key component of the Government’s wider growth mission. Van Hulle added that as the UK looks to strengthen productivity, competitiveness, and innovation across financial services, this analysis underlines the important role open banking can play in supporting those ambitions.
Thomas Bull, head of finTech growth at EY, echoed this sentiment, highlighting that open banking is fundamentally changing how people and businesses manage routine financial activity in real time. Bull stated that looking ahead, continued collaboration between the industry, regulators, and the government will be critical to building on this momentum. He stressed that scaling the existing ecosystem will ultimately support the transition towards a broader open finance framework, enabling fairer access to financial services across the UK.
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