Fintech players team on API ecosystem

This is an initiative that has the potential to truly change the financial services landscape. There is no reason really, that financial services API cannot become as standard as the USB connector or even a power plug/socket.

Banks are conspicuous by their absence in this initiative. The UK government has shown tremendous leadership and forsight in mandating that the banking industry come together and evolve as set of standard API that will allow access to customer data, to significantly increase competition among financial services providers, and more importantly, enhancing convenience for bank customers.

Neither in this article nor in a related one earlier Making sense of the government’s banking API initiative do I see any reference to voice of customer regarding extent of their data that can be be shared outside their bank via this API. So I'm assuming that there's isn't any provision for customer opt-in at all. In that case, this is a privacy and data security nightmare. I'm happy that banks aren't selling their customers out by backing this initiative (at least not yet!). While fintech companies will stand to benefit from this API, question is, at whose cost? I also echo the comment of @FinexraMember below the aforementioned post: "Can the govrenment show us the stats that prove there is pent-up consumer demand for this?"