Britton appointed to Chair UK Open Banking future body

The Future Entity Design Steering Group has appointed Ezechi Britton MBE as its independent chair. The group is overseeing an industry process linked to the next phase of Open Banking in the UK.

Britton will lead the steering group at the centre of a wider programme to design a new body for Open Banking. Open Banking Limited is acting as a neutral facilitator for the programme, which was set up by industry participants to determine the structure, remit and operating model of the future organisation.

The appointment puts a well-known figure from the UK fintech sector at the head of a process involving banks, payments companies, data-focused fintechs, technical service providers and card schemes. A working group of more than 30 funders has been convened from across the market, while the steering group will act as the decision-making body, with representation from each category.

The group's task is to produce a detailed blueprint and implementation plan for the proposed Future Entity. That work covers the organisation's scope, governance, funding model and the broader framework under which it would operate as Open Banking moves beyond its original phase.

Sector role

Since its launch in 2018, Open Banking has become a significant part of the UK payments and data-sharing market. It began as a regulatory initiative but has since expanded into a broader commercial and technical network used across payments, lending and personal finance services.

Figures released alongside the appointment show the scale of that growth. More than one billion Open Banking payments have been initiated through the UK's major high street banks, while more than 100 billion API calls have been made across the CMA9 banks. Monthly API traffic reached 2.81 billion calls in June.

Those numbers help explain why Open Banking's future governance has become a more prominent issue for policymakers and market participants. The design work is running alongside the development of secondary legislation for Open Banking and is intended to feed into the Long-Term Regulatory Framework, as well as broader efforts around account-to-account payments and smart data policy.

Britton brings experience spanning software development, advisory work and executive leadership. He was the first chief executive of the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology and now serves as chief executive officer of Collectively Better. He also sits on the government's Smart Data Council and leads a working group focused on supporting private sector investment in smart data.

That mix of experience appears to have influenced his selection. The steering group cited his work on complex multi-stakeholder projects and his knowledge of Open Banking and the wider smart data landscape as central to the decision.

Industry process

The Future Entity process is industry-led, which matters given the range of interests involved in the Open Banking system. Large banks, challenger banks, fintech companies, infrastructure firms and users of the system do not always share the same priorities on regulation, funding or governance. The chair will therefore need to manage a process that balances competing commercial and policy concerns while still producing a practical model.

The programme also comes at a time when Open Banking is increasingly seen as part of the UK's financial infrastructure rather than as a narrow compliance project. That shift raises questions about how the sector should be governed, how costs should be allocated and what role the future body should play in supporting adoption and maintaining trust in the system.

Commenting on the appointment, Britton highlighted both Open Banking's progress to date and the scale of the decisions now facing the sector.

"Open Banking has become one of the UK's biggest financial innovation successes, helping to create more competition, better services and new ways for consumers and businesses to manage their money. The Future Entity design work is an important opportunity to build on that foundation and shape the next phase of Open Banking in a way that is trusted, resilient and capable of supporting long-term growth.

"I'm pleased to be appointed as independent chair of the Future Entity Design Steering Group. This is a collaborative, industry-led process, and my role will be to help bring participants together, support balanced discussion, and ensure the key choices around the Future Entity are worked through openly and practically. It is essential that the process and any decisions made reflect the wider ecosystem, including organisations and users who may sit outside the formal steering group process," Britton said.