The question of how traditional, established banks and the "ecosystem" that surrounds them is easing into an era of open application programming interfaces was teased out by an expert panel on day 1 of this year's ASIC Forum. According to Michael Saadat, ASIC's senior executive leader for deposit takers, credit and insurers, the session attracted the largest audience of the three streams on offer.The crucial question is whether the promise of open banking - that is, increased interconnectedness, innovation and competition and a new type of consumer experience - can live up to the hype.In his brief recap, Scott Farrell, a partner at King & Wood Mallesons, who headed up the Australian government's review into open banking, said it was all about "the customer being in control". "It's not about sharing control, it's about sharing your data," he said.One question that the open banking review had to consider was in relation to bank customers who don't do internet banking - do they have a right to control their data, to have their information shared? "This is not only about technology, it's about competition," said Farrell."This is supposed to be a level playing field. And is not just about providing data to others so they can take business away from banks. It is also about providing data to others so that banks can win them back. That means there's a heavy reliance on reciprocity because it's still about the customer."Farrell also warned that the banking sector is just the first sector that will be opened up to competition in this way; telecommunications and energy are also on the government's agenda.Open data is intended to provide a safer and more efficient means than what was already in place, not to replace what's there. "Some decisions made depend on the value they see in their own data," said Farrell.An audience member threw a question on financial literacy to the panel, sparking a reaction from Emma Gray, ANZ's chief data officer, who took the promotion of the New Payment Platform as an example, arguing that the level of customer education has not matched the effort involved in setting it up."From a banks' standpoint we look at NPP and it's huge, it's a revolution. The pressure on our fraud systems, on our cyber systems to make it happen are immense."But from a consumer's viewpoint the first I would have heard of the NPP is a fish on the back of a bus," Gray said.In an ideal world, the panel agreed, consumers would be more aware of their own data."Open banking creates the opportunity for customers to be shown the opportunities and choices in the context of more complete data that exists today, in a safer form," observed Van Le, co-founder and customer innovation director at emerging digital bank Xinja. "The possibilities that exist when you combine rich data, personalised data and the possibilities of machine learning and artificial intelligence as well give great insights into our behaviours to genuinely see what's possible."Danny Gilligan, co-founder and