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Open Banking has started well, while pandemic served as an unexpected roadblock, equally, it has also accelerated our journey towards a digital future. The UK may have been the opening act but now it appears Europe is ready for its time in the spotlight, it's going to be an interesting trip.
The friction remains the banks and their poor speed of adoption with features like VRP and bulk/mass payments.
We've seen superb adoption with small businesses using tech like HibanaPay to reduce their acquiring charges but without VRP we're left to settle with traditional means.

Just as I was thinking the UK government showed no sign of intelligent life at all we get this...

"The influential cross-party Committee of MPs declared that cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have no intrinsic value and serve no useful social purpose, while consuming large amounts of energy and being used by criminals in scams, fraud and money laundering."

Wow, there is at least someone in there with a brain! 

Paige, thank you for this PSD update and its shift towards open finance, in which, I'm heavily invested. I look forward to the draft proposals and hope it will continue to inspire innovation and a more customer-centric landscape.
I hope the UK can continue to participate, dispite our stupidity in leaving the EU.

I firmly believe Open Banking is the future of payments, consumer and commercial. We implemented it as a pay-out options on our core platform as many other payments companies have done, it’s fast, secure and extremely efficient. Earlier this month we release a new C2B and C2C product under the brand name of HibanaPay (.com). Again, we believe this will be disruptive in the small space, coffee shops, barbers, beauty salons, market stores and beyond. In just a few weeks have have merchants who have thrown away their card machines and totally adopted Open Banking, progress in the making.

“A FinExtra Member”, people who don’t want transactions tracked are usually laundering or avoiding tax. From your window cleaner to the nail salon, it’s simply the black economy, like cryptocurrencies but without the Ponzi part. One of our largest groups of users are hair dressers and barbers. Clients turn up today with no cash (as it’s largely useless in major cities), they are then stung with having to pay 3% for the card networks (PSPs, PayFac, POS, acquirer, network, issuing bank etc.). Through Open Banking we save them the 3% and give it back to the merchant. As fewer shops take cash, people will stop carrying cash, as is the case today. Cash will eventually disappear just like carrying a lighter or matches just in case. Regulating to keep it is fighting progress, there are better ways to help those who still want cash without alienating them. We need to adapt to change and help those who are less able to adapt to the inevitable.

Forcing merchants to accept cash would be a major step backwards. The merchants should have the choice too and if they don’t have the provisions to accept cash they should be within their rights to exercise choice not to. Banks now charge to take cash, leaving cash on the premises risks crime and more time is required to handle cash. Cards however are not the solution, they cost the merchants a significant proportion of their profit margin. The future is Open Banking, no cash, quick and safe transaction and virtually cost-free.

What’s missing are the SLAs and consistency across API implementations. It’s all very well saying you have an API but if it’s down or responds “ack” when in fact the payment was declined or requires different fields from another bank then it makes it incredibly difficult for a PISP to provide a consistant reliable service to users.

Following up on the previous comment (David Gyori), I'm also very excited to see this, any progress in Open Banking is extremely welcome.
I do worry however, that the CMA9 banks are not really driving this, in fact I'd suggest they're probably the ones slowing it all down. After all, it's costing them money and not really bring in any extra, something rather critical in the current economics.
It would be good to see some input from the Apps companies, PISPs and AISPs too, even pre-licensed. They, after all, driving the innovation in Open Banking.

FIFA and Qatar are probably the main reasons we need to keep cash around.

What we need is a push on Open Banking. This maximises what the merchants receive and totally cuts out the acquirers, payfacs, issuing banks, interchange etc. The customer pays £100.00 and the merchant receives £100.00 seconds later. The PISP can charge for this but it's in the realm of basis points. We lead the world on Open Banking, let's make it work.