Open banking

Open banking is a regulated framework that lets a customer grant a licensed provider secure, API-based access to their bank account — to read account data or to initiate a payment directly — with explicit consent each time.

How it works

• Banks expose standardised APIs; regulators license who can use them.
• The customer authorises a specific action — share balances, or push a payment — inside their own banking app.
• The provider acts within that consent and nothing more, then the permission expires.

Unlike card payments, an open-banking payment moves money bank-to-bank, so there is no card network sitting in the middle.

Why it matters

Card rails carry interchange, chargebacks, and a processor’s cut. Open banking routes the payment straight from the payer’s bank, which usually clears faster and costs less — and because the customer authenticates in their own bank app, fraud and failed payments drop. For a platform collecting from many payers, that difference compounds.

How Fynex does it

Fynex leans on bank rails wherever they beat cards, routing each movement to the cheapest path — the same instinct behind pay by bank and Faster Payments. Payouts settle on schedule or by rule, verified before they leave. See payouts.