How secure is Open Banking?

"Fear not! Whilst the term ‘Open Banking’ may raise eyebrows to those new to it, it’s important for you to know that there are many, many steps taken by business like fumopay to ensure your transactions are secure and your data remains protected; it is actually far more secure than traditional payment solutions such as sharing bank data with friends of businesses.

Let me explain….

Crucially, there are two key factors that should provide you with confidence. The first is that Open Banking - and any regulated organisation - must comply with a standard security protocol known as PSD2 (Payment Services Directive Two). This is a legislation that forces providers of payment services to improve customer authentication processes and bring in new regulations around third-party involvement. In short, this law defines how each organisation must put in place the security protocols to access banking systems and, in turn, tightens how customers can access payments or services.

Part of PSD2 is Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), a two factor authentication protocol - which most customers will be familiar with - as they are promoted to one time passcodes (OPT) and an additional step to authenticate the person is truly that person.

At fumo, the only person that can authorise a payment via their bank account is the person that can authenticate against their own personal banking app; a fumopay open banking based payment offers a great deal more security than traditional payment solutions such as sharing bank details / entering card data.

Every fumopay payment is a direct account-to-account payment, meaning the money only moves from the payer to the payee. fumopay never accesses or holds customer’s funds when making social payments.

fumo would only ever need to hold customer’s money on behalf of a merchant if the merchant was following a two-step authorise and settle process such as securing the money to ensure the customer can afford to pay for the item / service whilst the merchant has time to process and confirm they can complete the order."

- Kevin Ludford ,

Founder and CEO of fumopay