Brazil Postpones Start Of Customer Data Sharing Under Open Banking

Brazil's Central Bank has delayed the introduction of the data sharing phase of the national Open Banking project as financial services institutions prepare their technology set-ups to cater for the new requirements.

According to the Central Bank, the decision is a response to a formal request from the Open Banking governance structure, as the participating institutions are finalizing the tests to secure the approval and registration of their open application programming interfaces (APIs), which will enable third-party developers to build applications and services around the participating financial institutions, with consumer data shared with their consent.

Following the request, it has been decided that the launch of the upcoming phase of the implementation, which involves the sharing of registration and transactional data of customers, has moved from the original date of July 15 to August 13.

"The Central Bank reinforces its commitment so that Open Banking achieves its objectives, of [achieving] greater competition, as well as efficiency in the financial system and financial inclusion of the population, remaining vigilant in the implementation process and sparing no efforts for this", the institution said in a statement.

The phased roll-out of Open Banking in Brazil started in February, with banks opening data on their service channels and the characteristics of banking products and services through open APIs, with no sharing of customer data. After the second phase, considered to be the most critical of the project, another stage will introduce the ability to pay bills and make money transfers outside a customer's bank environment.

In the last phase, which is still being discussed by the banks, other features could be added to the model such as sharing additional customer details, in areas such as foreign exchange services, investments, insurance and salary accounts.

The Open Banking project in Brazil was approved by the Central Bank in in early 2019. The model was set to be implemented in 2020 and pushed to early 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The project is part of a wider modernization agenda of the Brazilian financial system, which included the roll-out of instant payments in 2020 and release of guidelines for the creation of a digital currency.