Shifting Contour of Data Sharing in Financial Market and Regulatory Responses : the UK and Australian Models

Since the EU passed the PSD II, countries across the world have or are contemplating a new framework to govern data sharing among different players in financial markets—a trend called ‘Open Banking’ that requires or encourages banks to share consumer-permissioned banking data with third parties. This concept has been diffused from the EU, UK, to elsewhere. The current Open Banking trend raises a set of intriguing questions: is data sharing a novel thing in the banking sector? Before Open Banking, would banks share their data with third parties, and if so, how? If data sharing did exist in the pre-Open Banking world, why would governments ever bother to introduce Open Banking at all? What are the rationales justifying such regulatory intervention? What do these regulatory responses look like and how effective are they in reacting to concerns? This Article seeks to contribute to the existing literature by systemically contrasting the regulatory models adopted in the UK and Australia. Analyzing key aspects of the regulatory designs of these two models not only underscores the major differences and the rationales underpinning them but helps inform other countries to configure or reflect upon their regulatory designs when introducing similar initiatives