Part of obconnect’s Product Delivery Ecosystems

Cross-sector data sharing — the Open Banking playbook beyond banking

Open Banking solved a specific problem: letting a consumer securely share their bank data, or authorise a payment, with a third party of their choice. The mechanism that made it safe — a trust framework, certified participants and explicit consent — turns out not to be banking-specific at all. See: Product Delivery Ecosystems.

How the playbook jumps sectors

Every sector that holds valuable personal data faces the same problem Open Banking solved. Take healthcare: a person’s history — appointments, tests, prescriptions — is often trapped on paper or scattered across providers, so each new clinic re-reviews or re-does work. If that data could be shared securely, with the individual’s consent, through a trusted central authority, care would be faster and safer. The banking playbook maps directly: a directory of trusted participants, certification, and consent-driven sharing. The mechanism that made it safe — a trust framework, certified participants and explicit consent — turns out not to be banking-specific at all. The same principle is already extending within financial services itself, from Open Finance and Open Data.

What stays the same, and what changes

What stays the same: the core architecture — a central authority, certified participants, cryptographic identity, and consent held by the individual. What changes: the data itself and its sensitivity. Financial data and, say, medical data carry different rules and risk profiles, so the controls around consent, minimisation and security have to be tuned to each sector. The framework travels; the guardrails are re-set for the context.

The seismic potential — and obconnect's role

The prize is a world where a consumer controls their data across every sector and can share it, securely and temporarily, to get a better service — in banking, energy, telecoms, healthcare and beyond. obconnect’s role is the same in every case: build and operate the trusted, centralised infrastructure that makes safe sharing possible, so each sector doesn’t have to invent it from scratch.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

No. The underlying trust-and-consent model is being applied to other sectors, starting with energy, under the UK's wider "smart data" agenda.

The architecture — central authority, certification, identity and consumer-held consent.

The data's sensitivity and rules, which means the consent and security controls are tuned per sector.