Prominent digital bank Revolut has confirmed that it will support Open Banking for its customers in Germany.
According to a release, the new Open Banking features will allow Revolut’s German customers to easily connect their accounts at Comdirect, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, ING-DiBa and Sparkasse with the Revolut App. The digital bank’s clients will be able to view and keep track of their finances from a single location, directly from their mobile phones.
Revolut’s new Open Banking capabilities and features have been implemented with assistance from UK-based TrueLayer, which is Europe’s leading provider of financial APIs. The use of TrueLayer’s solutions should help with ensuring that customer’s bank account information from major German banks has been integrated in a secure manner. TrueLayer’s technology should also allow customer data to be updated in real-time in the Revolut app.
German customers will now be able to leverage Open Banking to link their accounts with supported financial services providers through the Revolut App. Users will also be able to transfer funds between Revolut and all their other connected accounts. They’ll also have the option to perform customized budget analyses across various accounts and send funds to friends or family members.
With the new Open Banking integration, Revolut customers may send money from one account directly to another using only the bank’s app. This should make it easier for people to track all their transactions from a single location.
Open Banking via Revolut will also support the top-up function, where accounts may be topped up directly via the bank’s app with quick transfers from the linked accounts, without requiring users to enter a card or IBAN. Users won’t be required to log into the online banking portals of other financial services providers to use these services.
Open Banking will be offered free of charge to all Revolut customers. At present, Revolut supports Open Banking for clients who maintain accounts with Comdirect, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, ING-DiBa and Sparkasse.
Revolut has been authorized by the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FCA) as an electronic money institution. The bank is licensed to offer account information and payment initiation services in the UK and several other jurisdictions such as Germany. Through the Revolut App, German customers can provide their consent to Open Banking.
Revolut confirmed that it would continue offering these services to German customers, even after Brexit from European-licensed firms in its group.
Accounts that are connected through APIs adhere to relevant PSD2 API requirements, which have been created to avoid security risks and prevent data leaks. Access to other bank accounts has been authorized through trusted and official websites of the banks and Revolut is not able to view the passwords or customer data.
All data is encrypted, while bank account links have to be re-authorized after every 90 days and can be paused and released at any given time.