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Let's imagine a new financial reality
If you feel helpless in front of the banks, you are not alone.
It's no secret that in the balance of power something just doesn't work.
Not even a heroic and big story like that of David vs. Goliath is hidden here, but just another little chronicle of Monopoly, which somehow always finds a way to skew the way to skew success in its favor.
Tags
Banks
banking
reform
Edith Silman
Michael Bitton
Yuval Samet
Wednesday, 01 September 2021, 15:24 Updated: Thursday, 02 September 2021, 08:51
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Right now, the Knesset is in a difficult and interest-filled struggle over the Open Banking Law.
One that can move the cheese for the benefit of the Israeli consumer, and is promoted by Finance Minister Lieberman, Coalition Chairman Idit Silman and MK Michael Bitton, Chairman of the Economics Committee, with the support of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
This bill brings us closer to the beginning of a great revolution. It will return control of the financial information that belongs to each and every one of us to our hands and allow it to work for us
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The banking information belongs to us, but remains with the bank and is used only for its benefit (Photo: ShutterStock)
So why is open banking significant for all of us? Because it turns blocking banking into enabling banking. Let's say I've been working as a practical engineer for 12 years, and I'm very much appreciated. It's just that I haven't been paid for years and I decide to try to find a new job.
Imagine a situation where I can not share my resume just because the employer blocks me from sharing the information, but not because it is confidential, but simply because he can do it under the auspices of bureaucratic procedures. What will it cause? It will leave me stuck with it, with no ability to find a better job.
And this is what is happening to us today in the bank account without the Open Banking Law: the system is made up of bureaucratic managers who benefit from only one side: the side of the banks. So that our financial information cannot be easily shared with anyone who is not our current bank. It blocks us from comparing prices, getting objective advice or just finding better services than what our bank offers - and most importantly, it costs us more in our pockets.
Leaving the information in the hands of the banks blocks us from receiving services that would have benefited us (Photo: ShutterStock)
Doesn't that sound outrageous? Why not everyone will want to adopt innovation? Unfortunately, there are factors that prefer to invest a lot in blocking technology, and a little in technology that allows.
Take Bank Yahav's customers, for example: For many months now, thousands of customers there have been blocked from joining the services created to help them live better with the money they have. As soon as they sought to use the financial information, which belonged to them, outside the bank, an official decision was immediately made by the management to block access to technological financial services.
Yes, exactly the same information that the bank will happily pass on to other banks or credit card companies. The fact that countless bank customers, teachers, parents and government employees have written moving letters asking to be given external access to information, simply did not help.
Some decided to leave the bank, the rest just remained frustrated, but only because there was no choice. By the way, they did not even get an answer. The main thing is to block instead of allowing. It does not have to be this way.
Yevul Samet, co-founder and CEO of Riseup (Photo: Dor Einav)
The open banking revolution in Israel has come to deal with cases such as Bank Yahav, which have absolute power over all of our information.
The Open Banking Law, which is about to be read for the first time in the Knesset, will change the balance of power between banks and customers.
It is not by chance that he is now being absurdly attacked in the Knesset in order to cancel it.
Fortunately, there are MKs like Idit Silman, chairman of the coalition (right) and Michael Bitton (blue and white), who, with extraordinary courage, are leading the struggle to reduce inequality, and open up the possibility of economic growth to all sections of the population, not just the strong.
If the Open Banking Act passes, it will allow us all for the first time to move freely between advanced technological services securely, and enjoy smart financial products that will allow us to use our information on a daily basis to compare prices in real time, consult experts whose interest is first our success, and start making decisions Customized for our household - and this will already be a reality of enabling banking.
The point of revolutions is that they cause us all to make a choice between the new world and the old world. Already today there are banks, such as Discount and Leumi, that have chosen not to wait for legislation and to adopt the new approach of enabling banking. Discount and Leumi opened the access, securely, to external technological partners and together we began to create an environment in which the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis are at the center.
It is time for this technological advancement to have a positive effect on the pockets of all consumers in Israel, from all walks of life.
The Open Banking Act is the beginning of a new financial reality.
And I believe that together, we can make it happen.
Yuval Samet is the co-founder and CEO of Riseup, former VP of Technology at the Swedish digital bank Clarna, one of Europe's leading product managers specializing in financial technology.
Among the leaders in the struggle for the enactment of open banking reform in Israel
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