Charlotte Crosswell, Chair of the Centre for Finance, Innovation, and Technology (CFIT), has shared a comment pertaining to the King’s Speech and policy included in the presentation.
This is the first time that King Charles has presided over the King’s Speech since the passing of his mother, Queen Elizabeth.
While heavy on ceremony, the King’s Speech is the opening of Parliament and provides an opportunity for an update on the ambitions of the current government. It is written by the UK government and not the King, and much of the policy is already in process. The text of the speech is available here.
Crosswell has long been engaged in the Fintech sector and was previously Chair and Trustee of Open Banking and was also CEO of the UK Fintech industry association Innovate Finance. Crosswell addressed specifically digital data protection legislation.
Crosswell stated:
“Today, the government committed to “opening the door to game-changing new technologies” through the Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) bill.
‘The end objective is to achieve ‘Open Data,’ where all types of personal data – financial, biographical, demographic, employment, etc. – can be securely shared within a trustworthy ecosystem.
‘The potential benefits of enhanced data-sharing in the realm of finance specifically will be transformational. This is a subset of Open Data that we call ‘Open Finance.’ We believe that Open Finance has the potential to be at the cutting edge of the UK’s march to Open Data for three reasons.
‘Firstly, because financial data makes up so much of the data landscape; secondly, because the Government is using the success of Open Banking as the first step towards unlocking a wider Smart Data economy: and thirdly, because we are seeing real progress being made within Open Finance through our industry-wide coalition on how to apply Open-Banking-style data-sharing to financial services more broadly.
‘Much like Open Banking showed the way, this bill will enable the Open Finance revolution, which is the next step towards opening up all other datasets, so that the UK can become a globally competitive, Smart Data economy.’