FINANCIAL INDUSTRY players and regulators are preparing the body that will oversee the development of open finance in the country.

Fintech Philippines Association Chief Legal Officer Mark S. Gorriceta said a transition group handling the policy and standard developments on open finance has started to meet weekly last month.

The group was set up by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and assisted by the World Bank and the International Finance Corp., he said.

“Basically, the purpose of the OFOC (open finance oversight committee) is that it will be the transition group that will lead the implementation of initiatory and transition-related activities pertaining to the establishment of a formal OFOC structure, and to formulate policies pertaining to open finance,” Mr. Gorriceta said at a forum hosted by the Fintech Philippines Association on Tuesday.

The transition body’s members include representatives from industry groups, including universal and commercial banks, thrift banks, digital banks, e-money issuers, operators of payment systems, and the financial technology industry.

The BSP in June released an open finance framework, which allows customer consent-driven data sharing for the purpose of providing more financial services to Filipinos.

The central bank said open finance use cases revolve around customer identification, payment transaction, credit scoring and enhancing customer insight, as well as anti-money laundering monitoring and compliance.

Bankers Association of the Philippines President Jose Arnulfo A. Veloso said open finance will give customers a chance to make informed investment decisions and create a portfolio appropriate for their financial needs based on a consolidated view of account information from third-party providers that are typically fintech firms.

Mr. Veloso said industry players will ensure players in the open finance ecosystem will work under the same standard of respect for data privacy and information security.

“Open finance has significant implications on data privacy and information security to areas which require careful consideration given the almost daily news of data breaches and cybersecurity incidents that occur globally,” he said.

Meanwhile, Visa, Inc. Country Manager for the Philippines and Guam Dan Wolbert highlighted the four areas that financial players will focus on in open finance for transparency. These include ensuring customers know what data they are sharing, having them know who has access to that data and its use cases, and the duration for the data usage.

“Consumer trust and informed decision making are critical and will be fundamental to widespread adoption of open banking and data sharing products here in the Philippines,” Mr. Wolbert said.

“Consumers should be given an option to be able to revoke their data permissions,” he added. — L.W.T. Noble

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