Once upon a time, I was in telecom running Impact Mobile. The refrain in the 2010s was that over-the-top (OTT) services would commoditize the carriers making them proverbial dumb pipes.

Smartphone, App Store … Yup, it happened. Granted, a big and profitable dumb pipe, but many of the value-added services evaporated for the telecommunication leviathans.

Now the same discussion is happening with financial carriers. Open Banking is the new OTT. Can banks avoid the inevitable?

Johannesburg-based Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking just launched an “online shopping mall and developer network” inside which corporate clients can discover and procure digital tools and services developed by the bank and its network of partners called OneHub.

This is a one-stop-shop for next-gen financial building blocks provided by a trusted bank and their tech partners. Companies get access to OneDeveloper, which offers an API playground for the developer community: from KYC to a suite of BaaS modules.

Who is going to deliver the financial sandbox in Canada?

www.thefutureoflending.com Canadian Lenders Association