Open banking: the fight over data access gets serious
Treasury has released a second version of a draft designation instrument for the application of the consumer data right to the banking sector. The new draft is in response to concerns raised in the first stage consultation last year, regarding the scope of information that can be carved out under the "materially enhanced" test.Materially enhanced information is data that is the "result of the application of insight, analysis or transformation" to enhance its value. Data holders may not be required to disclose such data under open banking.Materially enhanced information might include: the outcome of an income or expense verification assessment; a categorisation of transactions into expense categories; descriptions of transactions using geolocation or business name data from external sources.For open banking, the data that a customer will be able to ask to share will include: data the customer has provided to the bank; records of deposits and withdrawals, interest earned or fees; account balance data; and product data, such as pricing and terms.The issue is how much data that has been processed by the data holder will be covered by the consumer data right and how much will be carved out.The decision has already been made to include some processed (also referred to as "derived" or "value added") data, such as the outcome of a Know Your Customer assessment.Other processed data that will be available includes eligibility of a customer to obtain an account, expected amount at maturity and data on authorisations (including direct debit authorisations).According to the latest draft, the government wants to get the balance right and guard against access rights to processed data being too broad. There will be a review by the ACCC, which will advise the Minister, who will issue a "designation instrument".Treasury says: "Some stakeholders are concerned that the inclusion of value added data will have a negative impact on competition and incentives to innovate and invest. Some have proposed that the CDR legislation should generally exclude value added data but instead list all specific value-added data sets that will be included."