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Open Banking, as a UK regulatory mandate, may perhaps fall short of initial expectation. It is unjust to label it a failure. It was known in advance that additional friction would make it less attractive than incumbent methods for payments. And, whilst SCA sought to level the field, its implementation was necessarily extended due to other tech priorities on banks as a result of the Covid pandemic. Interestingly, an increase in payment use through open banking, prior to full rollout of SCA, indicates consumers are accepting of it despite current flaws.

Open banking as a concept for the industry has evolved into open finance and this continues to garner the interest of a wider section of the financial services industry. This will undoubtedly foster further innovation and competition in the banking sector and in turn it will exceed the original intentions of Open Banking.

It doesn't take years to document, prove and implement this technology. It is already in full use. It needs decision, courage, leadership and the correct technology partner; one that has a track record in this field.

Voice is only part of the story here. The real value comes from the technology platforms required to support speech recognition and Natural Language Processing. The "speech to text" and NLP create a simple mechanism for capture, audit, analysis and machine learning at a scale and pace not previously seen. Businesses are able to harvest knowledge from all their customer service interactions to create autonomous AI offerings with access to a vast knowledge base of information.