Thank you to our incredible community of partners who joined us at the 2023 Open Banking Expo, where we were thrilled to share the stage with our customers Global Payments and HSBC, and to announce our expanded connectivity to Scandinavia with our customer, Paysafe.
In case you missed this year’s event, read on for a recap of highlights and announcements.
The Pay by Bank playbook
This year, Open Banking Expo brought real world stories front and centre, starting with Token.io Chief Executive Officer Todd Clyde’s opening keynote. Todd shared “The Pay by Bank Playbook” for how payment providers can thrive in the face of the accelerating consumer shift to non-card based payments. (If you’re interested in learning more about this, request a meeting with one of our account-to-account payment experts!)
Todd then invited Nick Corrigan, European President and Executive Vice President of Global Payments, to the stage. Nick spoke to the Fortune 500 company’s work with Token.io to launch its own open banking-enabled payment solution.
“We try to stay close to the customer and listen to their needs,” commented Nick Corrigan. “Open banking payments are really important for us as a capability to offer to our merchants and customers. We’re all in on this,” he added.
Todd then invited Abbas Rana, Director, and Head of Product Management for HSBC Commercial Bankings’s Group Liquidity and Cash Management, to take to the stage to share the vision for HSBC’s Open Payments proposition, developed in partnership with Token.io.
“Pay by Bank was important for us to develop for one reason: to make our customers’ lives easier,” said Abbas. “We often hear the perspective that fintechs are threatening the existence of high street banks and competing with them for customer relationships. Yet for us, the development of Pay by Bank with Token.io demonstrated how fintechs and traditional financial services providers could work together to launch a customer-centric solution.”
Todd also shared several announcements with Open Banking Expo audiences, including the expansion of Token.io’s industry-leading connectivity network across Scandinavia with our launch partner, Paysafe, and Token.io’s renewed headline partnership with Open Banking Expo through 2025.
Token.io announces Scandinavia expansion with Paysafe
In a move that marks another significant milestone for Token.io, we announced the expansion of our direct open banking connectivity network to Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, where we now offers Account Information Services (AIS) and Payment Initiation Services (PIS) services.
This unlocks new opportunities for Payment Service Providers (PSPs), including leading payment platform Paysafe, which has expanded its coverage with Token.io to offer consumers and merchants a frictionless service in Denmark.
Paysafe’s A2A payment capabilities (otherwise known as Pay by Bank) allow customers to pay merchants securely and directly from their bank account using their online banking to authenticate the payment. The purchase or account top up takes place immediately and directly through the website or the gateway of the merchant.
“We are excited to expand our relationship and coverage with Token.io, utilising its bank integration infrastructure to fuel our Pay by Bank solution,” said James Tiltman, VP Product, Alternative Payments, at Paysafe. "The recent boom of open banking is nothing short of a revolution, empowering consumers with seamless transactions, control over their financial data, and a plethora of innovative services.”
Forging the future of payments in real-time
In tandem with the opening of Open Banking Expo, the future of payments was forged in real time at the Open Banking Expo during an on-site meeting of the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC)’s Variable Recurring Payments Working Group (VRPWG), which convened to finalise the highly anticipated VRP blueprint ahead of its delivery to the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) later that month.
Hot off the heels of this meeting, Kate Fitzgerald (Head of Policy for the Payment Systems Regulator) and Jane Moore (Head of Department Payments & Digital Assets for the Financial Conduct Authority) took to the main stage for a powerhouse debate with Charles Damen (Chief Product Officer at Token.io), Raffaele Brusco (Senior API Growth Manager for NatWest Group) and Andrew Boyajian (Head of VRP at Tink).
Delivering on the promise of commercial VRP
As leaders from the Payment Systems Regulatory, Financial Conduct Authority, Token.io, Tink and NatWest shared their perspectives on commercial VRP, three key themes emerged:
Iterate to create momentum
Focus on e-commerce
Build for scalability
“In the UK, we don’t want to depend on card systems. (...) We’ve convened the VRP Working Group to get VRP pilots working using what we’ve got with open banking to create a scalable and sustainable model. By the end of this year, we hope you’ll see findings of the VRP Working Group. We want it to be possible to use some of these low risk use cases by the second half of next year, which will get this model out there and into a really scalable product.”
Kate Fitzgerald, Head of Policy for the Payment Systems Regulator
“E-commerce is critical, and we’re pleased to see ecommerce is still firmly in the [JROC VRP Working Group’s] blueprint. But as a product person, I like to take an interactive approach. We don’t have to wait [for the blueprint]; we can make progress even as the JROC VRP Working Group builds out the grand vision and plan that helps us scale VRP in the industry. We hope to do a commercial VRP pilot for ecommerce by the second half of next year, because we see a massive amount of interest in e-commerce.”
Charles Damen, Chief Product Officer, Token.io
“The more we can fast track this process, the better. I’d love the industry to be a bit more bullish… Next year, I’d love to have an ecommerce pilot for VRP.”
Raffaele Brusco, Senior API Growth Manager for NatWest Group
“We’re massively supportive of the industry getting on and doing what they can.”
Kate Fitzgerald, Head of Policy for the Payment Systems Regulator
Bringing fresh VRP data to the conversation
If the sessions and discussions at Open Banking Expo were anything to go by, then Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) are generating plenty of interest and excitement across the ecosystem, including among merchants, payment services providers (PSPs) and banks.
The reason for the hype is because VRPs deliver better outcomes than both card-on-file and direct debit, in virtually every way. But don’t just take our word for it.
The findings of our latest survey report, ‘The Future of Dynamic and Variable Recurring Payments,’ informed discussions on VRP across both days of the Open Banking Expo.
Download your copy to:
See how Variable Recurring Payments stack up as an alternative to cards and direct debit
Learn whether merchants see commercial VRP as a replacement for card payments
Understand industry attitudes towards the development of contract frameworks and standardised fees
Learn whether the UK’s fintech industry believes it requires a similar approach to Europe’s SPAA scheme
Access exclusive commentary and analysis by leaders from Token.io, UK Finance, NatWest, the SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) Scheme, Open Banking Limited, and more
And, for an even deeper dive into the subject, read ‘Bringing the benefits of Variable Recurring Payments to life’ from Token.io Product Partnerships and Propositions Manager, Ben Rattue.
Spotlight on supply
While in previous years, much of the discussion at Open Banking Expo surrounded merchant and consumer demand for open banking-enabled services, this year’s Expo took a notably different tone.
The often overlooked ‘supply side’ of the payments value chain was a focus both on and off stage, with Global Payments’ Senior Product Manager Bevan Callaghan and Product Manager Cormac Bane joining Token.io VP Customer Success Sunil Gossain on the main stage for a fireside chat on what creative solutions payment service providers are using to scale bank payments.
Moderated by The Fintech Times’ Tom Bleach, a key discussion point was the need for PSPs to develop creative solutions that address integration as a key barrier to merchant adoption. One potential solution offered was for PSPs to mass enable open banking-enabled payments by making Pay by Bank an opt-out, rather than opt-in, choice on Hosted Payment Pages.
Perspectives on PSD3
This year’s Open Banking Expo brought together over 1000 attendees for two days of rich content, conversations and connections at London’s Business Design Centre. But despite its London locale, the Expo’s agenda included plenty of focus on open banking and open finance developments across the channel. A packed panel debate on whether PSD3 and FIDA legislation could enhance competition and increase industry innovation in Europe brought day one of the Expo to a close.
Moderated by Ellie Duncan, Head of Editorial & Broadcast for Open Banking Expo, this session revealed the perspectives of Jim Wadsworth (Executive Vice President, Strategic Market Development for Konsentus), Thomas Egner (Secretary General for the Euro Banking Association) and Robert Sullivan (Public Policy & Strategy Director for Token.io).
Variable Recurring Payments for e-commerce: priority or pipe dream?
With the JROC VRP Working Group’s submission of a blueprint for a phased roll-out of commercial VRPs in the United Kingdom initially identifying e-commerce use cases as a stretch goal, Token.io Chief Product Officer Charles Damen, Barclays’ Director of Product, Open Banking & Digital Robert Levy and Virgin Media’s Payments Strategy Lead David Cox engaged in a lively debate on what is needed to unlock commercial VRP for e-commerce.
Payments and the European Open Banking Scene
It was standing-room-only for the powerhouse panel debate on “Payments and the European Open Banking Scene,” which saw Token.io Information Security Officer Sarah Burr join Nicola Breyer (CEO, Qwist), Daniel Szmukler (Director, Euro Banking Association (EBA), Phoebe Zhou (Head of Emerging Payments, Europe, HSBC) and Tanya Ziv (COO, Yapily) to explore how markets and players in Europe are innovating whilst striving for profitability in a regulatory landscape.
Putting payments in the fast lane for British Car Auctions
In this fuel-injected fireside, moderated by Token.io VP Customer Success Sunil Gossain, Laura McSkeane (Product Manager, Global Payments Solutions for HSBC UK) and John Coker (Head of Product for British Car Auctions [BCA]) explored how HSBC Online Payments has enabled British Car Auctions to create smoother, faster customer journeys.
Until next year…
We are grateful for the overwhelming support and enthusiasm we received this year, and pleased to announce that Token.io will return as headline partner of Open Banking Expo — the world's largest and most significant open banking event — through 2025.