When Helen Child talks about open banking, she does not start with application programming interfaces (APIs) or fintech. She begins with people. In her view, the evolution of financial services is not about disintermediation or disruption for its own sake—it is about delivering value to those who have historically been underserved, misunderstood or excluded. As the founder of Open Banking Excellence (OBE), the world’s largest open banking and open finance community, Child has been at the forefront of a global movement to reimagine financial data sharing through the lens of trust, utility and fairness. The story of open banking in the United Kingdom (UK) is often told as one of regulatory intervention and market reform. But for Child, it is also a story of collective ambition—a framework that emerged from a competition remedy and evolved into a global case study for collaborative innovation. Her work, from leading OBE’s engagements with regulators and central banks to building real-world use cases with institutions like the UK’s tax authority, His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), reflects a clear message: open banking is not just a fintech trend—it is the foundation of a more transparent and equitable financial system. Origin and evolution of open banking in the UK Child’s journey with open banking began well before the term became a global buzzword. She was among the early voices in the UK who recognised that financial services needed to evolve—not just technologically, but philosophically. Open banking, in its inception, was not born out of Silicon Valley exuberance, but from a competition remedy led by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Its goal: to address inertia, opacity and limited choice in retail banking. Child views this origin story as critical. Unlike voluntary data-sharing initiatives, the UK’s open banking framework was anchored in enforceable standards, regulatory backing and a commitment to interoperability. It was built on the idea that individuals should have secure, reliable access to their own financial data and be empowered to use it for their benefit. At the heart of the initiative was the concept of consent—that financial data belongs to the customer, not the institution. Since its launch, the UK’s open banking framework has become a benchmark for jurisdictions around the world. Yet, Child is quick to point out that the UK model is not perfect. In her conversations with TAB Global and in other public forums, she often described the UK’s approach as “safe and trusted,” but not yet complete. Open banking is only the first step. The future, she says, lies in open finance—extending secure data-sharing to pensions, mortgages, insurance and other financial services—and eventually, open data, encompassing everything from healthcare to energy. She noted that some markets, like Brazil, have taken a more accelerated, top-down approach, integrating both banking and finance data from the outset. Others, like Australia, have built broader data-sharing frameworks through their Consumer Data Right (CDR) initiative. Yet Child believes that no one jurisdiction has all the answers. Each country must balance regulation, market dynamics and cultural trust in institutions. What the UK has demonstrated, however, is that it is possible to build a secure, standards-based ecosystem that opens up new possibilities for consumers while maintaining institutional stability. For Child, the real test of open banking is not how many APIs are built, but how many people’s lives are improved. And that, she argued, is where the industry must now focus its efforts. Open banking excellence as a global community and advisory Child founded OBE not as a corporate venture or a trade group, but as a community—one that would bring together regulators, banks, fintechs and policymakers around a shared goal: to make open banking meaningful. What began in the UK has grown into a globally recognised platform that now convenes thought leaders and institutions from more than 40 countries. Under her leadership, OBE has become a trusted source of insight, a sounding board for new ideas and a bridge between innovation and regulation. At the core of OBE’s work is the principle that open banking is not a product or a policy—it is a movement. Child often described the organisation as an “engine room of innovation,” but one that is grounded in practicality. Through events, white papers, international missions and bilateral advisory, OBE supports both developed and emerging markets in navigating the complexities of data sharing, digital identity and consumer protection. The organisation has worked directly with central banks, finance ministries and supervisory agencies, advising on everything from technical standards to regulatory frameworks. In particular, Child has emphasised the importance of use-case-led design. “Don’t regulate in the abstract,” she has urged governments. “Define the outcomes you want—then build the rules that will get you there.” To that end, OBE has partnered with academic institutions such as the University of Oxford to develop evidence-based frameworks for adoption. It has also collaborated with UK embassies and trade missions to gather and analyse insights from global markets, helping to shape policy dialogues in countries as diverse as Mexico, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates. These engagements, Child noted, are not about exporting the UK model, but about co-developing strategies that reflect local contexts and citizen needs. What sets OBE apart is its dual identity: part global think tank, part grassroots convener. Its events bring together global leaders and local practitioners, regulators and developers, incumbents and challengers. Child’s ability to maintain trust and credibility across these often-divergent communities is a testament to her inclusive approach. She avoids the rhetoric of disruption for disruption’s sake, focusing instead on collaboration, shared learning and measurable impact. In a space often dominated by technical jargon and abstract policy debates, OBE under Child’s leadership keeps the focus where it matters—on delivering better outcomes for real people, using real data, in real time. Commercial value and national use cases For Child, the success of open banking must ultimately be measured by its utility—how it creates tangible value for consumers, businesses and institutions. She frequently pointed to the HMRC, as one of the clearest demonstrations of open banking’s practical power. HMRC is widely recognised as the world’s leading government open banking use case, having integrated account-to-account payments for tax collections, refunds and other services. This transformation, Child explained, has produced measurable benefits: fewer failed payments, faster reconciliation, lower transaction costs and improved customer experience. But what makes the HMRC example particularly compelling, in her view, is that it demonstrates open banking’s potential not just in financial services, but in public service delivery. It is an example of innovation improving government efficiency while also enhancing citizen trust. She sees HMRC as a blueprint that other jurisdictions can adapt—not by copying its technical architecture, but by learning from its approach. It started with a clearly defined need and built a solution rooted in real-time data and secure user consent. For Child, this is the key to unlocking value at scale: identify a systemic problem, build around the user, and deliver outcomes that benefit both providers and recipients. Beyond government, she sees growing momentum among commercial institutions seeking to harness open banking for payments, credit decisioning and cash flow forecasting. She notes that account-to-account payments are increasingly gaining traction as an alternative to card networks, particularly for recurring transactions and e-commerce. By removing intermediaries and reducing friction, these solutions offer both cost savings and greater transparency. Still, Child is pragmatic about the limitations. She acknowledges that open banking is not a panacea, and that uptake varies widely depending on sector, user familiarity and regulatory clarity. This is why she continues to champion the importance of use cases. Whether the audience is a regulator in Africa, a policymaker in Asia or a commercial bank in Europe, her message is the same: start with the problem you want to solve. Don’t build for the sake of technology—build for the sake of people. As more countries adopt open finance mandates, she sees a clear opportunity to widen the scope of value delivery. Insurance, pensions, wealth management and even energy services can benefit from secure, consent-driven data sharing. The challenge is no longer about proving technical feasibility—it is about scaling trust, demonstrating return and aligning incentives across the ecosystem. Inclusion, innovation and fairness Inclusion is not a slogan for Child—it is the purpose behind her advocacy for open banking. From the earliest stages of her career, she has focused on how technology can serve people who have been marginalised by traditional financial systems. In her view, open banking offers an unprecedented opportunity to design services that are accessible, equitable and tailored to individual needs—not just mass-market averages. Child frequently referenced examples like Salad Money, a UK-based lender that uses open banking data to provide fair, affordable credit to key workers who are often excluded by conventional credit scoring models. Instead of relying on outdated proxies like postcode or credit history, these lenders assess real-time income and expenditure data with consent, offering loans to teachers, National Health Service (NHS) staff and social workers on the basis of what they earn and spend, not what a bureau says about them. Another example is Moneyhub, a data and payments fintech that empowers users to take control of their finances through aggregation and personalisation. These platforms show that inclusion is not just about access—it is about agency. They give users tools to understand their money, plan their future and make better decisions. For Child, this is where open banking must go: beyond convenience, toward empowerment. She also challenges the financial sector to rethink its assumptions about what inclusion looks like. It's not enough to put a digital front end on a legacy product. True inclusion, she argued, requires reimagining the product itself—how it's priced, how it's accessed, and how it's adapted for people with fluctuating incomes, limited digital literacy or inconsistent documentation. What makes open banking uniquely powerful, in her view, is its potential to support personalisation at scale. By giving individuals control over their data and the ability to share it safely, the system enables services to be tailored to real lives, not theoretical segments. This is particularly transformative for gig workers, caregivers, migrants and others who have historically struggled to fit into one-size-fits-all financial models. Child also spoke passionately about inclusion from a gender perspective. She noted that women are more likely to be excluded from financial services and disproportionately affected by economic shocks. Open banking, if deployed with intention, can provide better financial insights, savings tools and access to capital for women-owned businesses and households led by women. Underlying her work is a belief that fairness must be designed into the system from the start. If left to market forces alone, innovation will not necessarily produce equitable outcomes. This is why she continues to call for regulatory frameworks that encourage inclusive design, mandate transparency and ensure that the benefits of open banking are distributed, not concentrated. Inclusion, for Child, is not just about who gets access. It is about who gets value, who has control and who is protected. She sees open banking as a means to shift financial systems from being extractive to being genuinely supportive—and she is working to make that vision real. Child believes that the success of open banking will be defined not by speed or coverage, but by impact. When governments, banks and innovators commit to building meaningful use cases—like HMRC—the result is not just commercial efficiency, but public value. Trust, customer protection and future frameworks Trust is the cornerstone of open banking. For Child, no amount of innovation matters if trust is eroded. She has long argued that the right to control one’s financial data must be underpinned by strong protections, clear accountability and a regulatory framework that puts the customer first. Consent is not simply a legal tick box—it is a relationship. And it must be treated as such. In the UK model, banks currently underwrite the risk when customers give third-party providers access to their data via open banking. This means that if something goes wrong, the liability falls to the bank, not the customer. Child sees this as a vital trust mechanism—it reassures users that they are protected, even in a fast-evolving ecosystem. It is, in her view, one of the key reasons why the UK framework has gained credibility globally. However, she acknowledged that this arrangement is not sustainable forever. As the ecosystem expands beyond banks to include insurers, pension providers and non-financial platforms, the question of liability becomes more complex. Who carries the risk when multiple actors are involved? What happens when data is shared across borders, sectors or even regulatory jurisdictions? Child is actively engaged in these discussions, both in the UK and internationally. She advocates for a shared liability model—one that spreads responsibility across the value chain but does so transparently and proportionately. She also calls for new standards around data access, consent renewal, and redress mechanisms. In her view, customer protection cannot be retrofitted. It must be embedded into the system from day one. A related challenge is how to balance openness with security. The more actors that participate in open finance, the more attack surfaces emerge. Yet Child warned against allowing fear to dominate the conversation. “Security,” she said, “should be a driver of design, not a blocker of progress.” She supports rigorous onboarding standards, strong encryption, and continual risk assessments—but insists these must be implemented in ways that support innovation, not stifle it. Equally, she pushes back against narratives that frame open banking as a threat to incumbents. In her view, it is not about displacing banks, but about enabling collaboration. Banks that embrace openness, transparency and co-creation can thrive in the new environment. Indeed, she often highlights how forward-thinking banks are using open banking to improve onboarding, reduce fraud and create new revenue streams. Ultimately, Child sees trust as a public good. Without it, the financial system becomes fragmented, opaque and exclusionary. With it, the system becomes a platform for empowerment. Her vision is for a global ecosystem where users are not only protected, but respected—where consent is meaningful, security is shared, and trust is earned, not assumed. The AI and open banking convergence Child described the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and open banking as “a partnership made in heaven”—but only if built on sound foundations. In her view, AI has the potential to unlock an entirely new layer of value in financial services, provided that it is fuelled by clean, consented, real-time data. And that, she argues, is precisely where open banking excels. For Child, the promise of AI lies not in automation for its own sake, but in personalisation at scale. With access to permissioned financial data—income patterns, spending behaviour, savings habits—AI models can be trained to offer highly contextualised insights. These can help consumers manage debt, plan for major life events, or even identify financial risks before they materialise. But without high-quality data governed by user consent, she warns, AI risks reinforcing the same inequities it claims to solve. She also sees tremendous opportunity for the convergence of AI and open banking beyond the private sector. In the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), for example, financial stress is one of the leading causes of absenteeism among staff. Child suggested that combining financial data insights with AI-driven modelling could help design better staff wellbeing programmes, identify early signs of financial distress, and allocate support more effectively. This, she believes, is a glimpse into the future of joined-up, human-centred services across sectors. But she is equally clear about the risks. AI without transparency, explainability or consent mechanisms could become a black box—making decisions that users do not understand and cannot challenge. Child insists that as AI becomes embedded in financial services, it must be accompanied by strong ethical frameworks and clear governance. The principles that underpin open banking—control, accountability, and transparency—must carry over into the AI era. Another critical issue is bias. If AI models are trained on historical data that reflects existing inequalities—such as discriminatory lending practices or systemic financial exclusion—then those biases will be replicated and even amplified. Child argues that open banking offers an opportunity to break this cycle by enabling real-time, diverse data sets that better reflect actual financial behaviour rather than outdated assumptions. She sees the coming years as a critical window to align the development of AI with the open banking principles that are already reshaping finance. This alignment, she says, will determine whether the next wave of digital services is empowering or extractive. The convergence of these technologies is not inevitable—it must be designed. And that design must be intentional, inclusive and accountable from the start. Global momentum and lessons for other markets Child’s influence extends far beyond the UK. Through OBE, she has advised governments, regulators and financial institutions across Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. From Mexico to Ghana, she has helped shape national conversations around how open banking can serve not only innovation, but inclusion, trust and public value. Her core message to these markets is simple but powerful: start with outcomes, not infrastructure. Rather than importing regulatory templates or technical standards from the UK or EU, Child urges policymakers to define the problems they want to solve—whether it’s financial exclusion, inefficient government services or barriers to SME lending—and then develop a framework that fits. In Ghana, for example, she has worked with central bank leaders on how open finance could support agricultural payments and financial resilience in rural communities. In Mexico, she has advised on how to build a regulatory roadmap grounded in practical use cases that matter to citizens and businesses. In each case, the emphasis is on adaptability. “There is no single model,” she has said. “But there are shared principles—trust, consent, safety, and utility.” Child also cautions against what she calls “tech-first thinking”—the tendency to lead with platforms and APIs before engaging with communities or defining a value proposition. She believes this approach leads to superficial adoption, low engagement and even mistrust. Instead, she champions a step-by-step approach that begins with ecosystem mapping, stakeholder alignment and cross-sector engagement. One of the most valuable lessons she brings to emerging markets is that open banking doesn’t have to start with the most complex products. Simpler services—such as payments, digital ID-linked onboarding or data-driven social benefits—can have an outsized impact, especially where traditional infrastructure is limited. These can serve as proof points to build trust, attract investment and guide regulatory refinement. Another key lesson is the need for strong public–private collaboration. Whether it’s banks, fintechs, telecoms or ministries, Child emphasised the importance of early alignment and transparent communication. The most successful markets, she notes, are not those with the most aggressive mandates, but those where stakeholders work together to build shared trust in the system. She also believes that some emerging markets are in a position to leapfrog legacy challenges by building systems that are digital, interoperable and inclusive from the outset. By focusing on user needs and outcomes—rather than replicating developed market infrastructure—they have the opportunity to create next-generation models for financial access and empowerment. In all her global engagements, Child reinforced the idea that open banking is not a UK product or a Western construct. It is a global movement, shaped by local realities and driven by universal needs: dignity, opportunity and control over one’s financial life. Vision and impact Child’s vision is not bound by the technology of open banking, but by its potential to shift power—gently but profoundly—back to people. Her work has consistently focused on how systems can be redesigned to serve individuals with fairness, transparency and dignity. For her, impact is not measured in the number of APIs deployed or fintechs launched, but in the lives changed through systems that are more accessible, more accountable and more humane. Across every conversation and initiative she has had or led, Child returned to a fundamental question: what kind of financial system are we building, and for whom? Too often, she noted, innovation serves the already advantaged—those who have the digital literacy, stable income or existing access to financial products. Her challenge to the industry is to build for those who don’t tick those boxes. To create systems that work not only for the confident consumer, but for the nurse working shifts, the gig worker juggling three jobs, or the pensioner navigating rising costs with declining options. Her founding of OBE reflects that ethos. It is not a lobbying platform or an industry showcase—it is a community committed to impact. Under her leadership, it has brought together global stakeholders to co-create solutions, share lessons and raise the bar for what is possible. It has played a key role in shifting the narrative from open banking as a compliance obligation to open banking as a force for systemic improvement. Child’s impact also lies in her emphasis on humility and listening. Whether working with regulators in the UK or ministries in Africa, she encourages leaders to listen first—not just to fintechs and banks, but to users. She believes in grounding regulation in lived experience, in starting small and scaling thoughtfully, and in treating data not as a commodity, but as a shared asset to be stewarded responsibly. As she looks to the future, Child sees open banking not as an endpoint, but as a foundation—one that will support open finance, open data and new forms of public service delivery. She is particularly excited by the convergence of financial and social systems, where insights from data can help design better education pathways, healthcare outcomes and economic mobility strategies. But her message to the next generation of policymakers, innovators and financial leaders is not about technology. It is about purpose. Build systems that do not just function—but that serve. Build with integrity. Build with others. And build so that more people can participate fully, confidently and safely in the economy of tomorrow. In Helen Child’s world, inclusion is not an accessory—it is the architecture. And her impact is already visible in the frameworks, communities and conversations she has helped shape around the world.
