Fintech founders accuse Starling’s Boden of trying to stifle innovation

Boden told MPs in October that “Open Banking has not been a success”, arguing that other measures would be best deployed to encourage customers to switch accounts.

Her comments have been met with disbelief by a coalition of fintech founders who co-signed a letter to MPs rejecting her views.

The letter, which was signed by a host of fintech luminaries, inclouding Giles Andrew of Zopa and Paul Taylor of Thought Machine among others, accuses Boden of making a “dramatic oversimplification of the proposition provided by Open Banking” in her presentation to the Committee.

Of Boden’s claims that Open Banking has been a failure, the Fintech Founders group writes: “This is not our view, and we believe that this view is uncompetitive and typical of banks trying to thwart the future of innovation in financial services.

“Although the technology has only been live since November 2018, Open Banking has already led to the formation of a whole host of new start-ups, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in new venture capital investment. There are now over 2.5 million Open Banking payments a month, compared to just 320,000 in the whole of 2018. Whilst the implementation has been far from perfect, and there are challenges – but we are still in the early stages of the journey.”

Boden hit back at the comments on Twitter, noting that 47 of the signatories were men and calling for a greater diversity in views on fintech innovation.

P.S.

FinTech must do better on diversity – the 50 was made up of 47 men and 3 women.

For all you women tech entrepreneurs out there – it’s tough – but you too can build a unicorn!

— Anne Boden (@AnneBoden) December 29, 2021