Reluctance by banks and government agencies to share data with alternative lenders is driving up the cost of borrowing in Australia, according to Rob Young, senior vice president international at OnDeck Capital, who spoke at the AltFi Australasia conference in Sydney yesterday."What's is missing in Australia is the top down approach that the UK has used to promote fintechs and the online lending and credit sector," Young told Banking Day."I don't see that here.  There are a lot of good words, there are a lot of good intentions, there's a lot of talk about comprehension comprehensive credit reporting - but don't see anything happening."Young explained that in Australia there is limited sharing of credit, banking or tax data, whereas the UK's open data regime has forced banks to share customer data and open up their APIs to third parties."The UK is a great example of where open data has been in place for several years, the alternative finance sector is flourishing, and even the banks have benefited by opening up cross-sell opportunities within their own businesses," Young said.Another factor is the bank referral scheme, which is now live in the UK. "When a small business owner is refused a loan by a bank, that request for credit must be forwarded to a group of government approved matching platforms, where alternative lenders can bid for that customer." His colleague, Cameron Poolman, CEO of OnDeck Australia, added: "What's happened in the UK didn't occur overnight. Treasurer Scott Morrison has been very active in supporting fintechs in Australia, and has spent some time in the UK observing what's happening there. "The big banks have been very slow to join, and there needs to be a certain amount of data for the credit agencies to build their scores. At least three of the four big banks," Poolman said."Australia will move to open data or potentially that will be legislated if the banks don't follow suit."Simon Bligh, CEO of Dun & Bradstreet, was bullish on the need to share data to expand the market."Peer to peer lenders in Australia, to our observation, are really focusing on good credit quality that is mispriced," he said. "They're not chasing the bottom of the market - they understand there is a shared responsibility to have this new class of lender being seen as reputable to act responsibly and to lend intelligently," he said."The issue is going to be how fast can P2Ps grow - they have to get to scale to cover the costs of the platform."A comprehensive credit reporting regime will be very helpful for the AltFi lenders, Bligh said. "They've got the systems set up to deal with different data and can act with a bit more agility than large organisations." Bligh also suggested that the information asymmetry between the top lenders and the smallest online lenders would be "partially bridged" once CCR was up and running.With business loans, though, CCR won't help all that much, he said.For that part of the lending market, big game