Sebastian Siemiatkowski@klarnaseb
NOTE: Using OpenAi Operator at your bank in EU is illegal by law! Web access for assistants was banned years ago as part of “Open banking”
Here is the story of why:
15 years ago I stumbled into Sofort in Germany. A company with the idea to build a digital assistant that would interact with your banks poor UI, so you as a user could avoid it. Just like operator. Back then it was script based, not AI but it worked.
I was so impressed Klarna bought the company. It has since then processed billions of dollars.
But of course banks got scared! What happens if people use the digital assistant only, instead of their bank. And what if the assistant says, stop paying those fees to your bank and let me help you switch?
So German banks sued. They claimed privacy concerns. It went to Brussels and a long lobbying and legal fight pursued. This was the beginning of what we today call open banking!
I and others spent years fighting over consumers right to use digital assistants, when accessing their banks. We knew this was critical to create real competition, in an industry that has been plagued by excess profits for years.
At first Jonathan Hill from UK was responsible and very supportive. But then he left and a German guy came onboard. He was 100% aligned with incumbent banks and we thought the case was lost. However he did a mistake and let some Russian oligarchs take him for a ride on their private jet. And so he was out.
Finally @VDombrovskis stepped in. He was smart and supportive but pressure from banks was intense. There was rumors that they were funding privacy groups in Germany, to have them use privacy concerns to kill Open Banking. What if the digital assistant accessed some of your private data?
We were about to loose the vote, when the competitive authorities of EU started getting interested. They suspected the banks were lobbying and pursuing this matter for profit reasons to reduce competition(really…). A few weeks before the vote in parliament they raided the offices of some Dutch and Polish banks. Everyone got super nervous and the Open Banking regulation was passed!
Almost…
A small technical detail was left to EBA (European banking authorities). Should your digital assistant use an API for access to your bank account or the standard web UI you use yourself for accessing your bank?
We pushed as hard as we could. We highlighted and said, if your assistant is mandated to use the API that your bank supplies. What if the API don’t support all the same features. Or the API is broken?
Don’t worry said regulators. You can complain with authorities 😂
We said at least let the digital assistant, as fall back, use the web UI. Then banks cant cheat, as they will know we can always use the same UI as their human customers. It’s called self regulation. But EBA ignored us.
Today web UI access for digital assistants as ChatGPT Operator is illegal by law.
And surprise, surprise the open banking API of European banks, continue to be broken, lack functionality and banks add as much friction as they can. We report and see thousands of issues with these APIs every year.
And people ask me why open banking has not become a larger success…
What do you say @donaldtusk time for a change? Jest potrzebne!
