On September 12, Barclays proclaimed itself the first UK high street bank to allow its customers to view in its proprietary mobile app their current accounts at rival providers.
It looks like a big step forward in open banking.
Catherine McGrath, managing director of retail banking at Barclays, says: “Today, lots of people have current accounts with more than one bank, so keeping track of your finances can be tricky as well as time-consuming. Our new feature is designed to solve this problem, offering a simple and secure way to get a clearer picture of your finances, all in the place six million of our customers already go to do their banking.”
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Catherine McGrath, |
Thankfully, the feature has been designed with customer safety at its heart, Barclays assures us. It uses industry-approved open banking API technology to ensure that customers’ accounts are linked into the app securely, without them ever needing to give out their other banks’ usernames or passwords.
How very modern.
Unfortunately, by the end of September, Barclays customers had suffered temporary outages that left them unable to access online banking.
