What is open banking (and what is an AISP)?

Open banking is a framework that lets you securely share your own bank account data with regulated third parties, with your explicit consent. Instead of handing over your login, you authorise a licensed provider to connect to your bank through a secure, supervised channel. In the UK and EU this is underpinned by regulation - PSD2 and its successors - and overseen by financial regulators.

An AISP, or Account Information Service Provider, is the type of licensed provider that reads your account information: balances, transactions and positions. Read is the key word - an AISP can see your data, with your permission, but cannot move your money. Moving money is a separate, separately-authorised role (a Payment Initiation Service Provider, or PISP), with its own consent each time.

The benefits are control and a complete picture: you can connect accounts from many banks and providers into one view, revoke access whenever you like, and avoid insecure screen-scraping. Open banking does not give anyone the right to spend your money - access is read-only unless you separately and explicitly authorise a payment.