What is ‘Open Banking’?

Open Banking is a financial services approach that enables third-party financial service providers (‘Third-Party Provider(s)’) to access consumer banking, transaction, and other financial information through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Open Banking allows customers to share their financial information securely and electronically with other banks, or other authorised financial organisations.

‘APP’ stands for authorised push payments, and it’s called this because of the fact that the victim authorises these payments from their account to the scammer’s account. 

Common APP fraud scams include impersonation scams, in which the scammer will pretend to be someone they’re not, and use the victim’s trust in them to make payments to their account.

For example, a scammer could pose as the victim’s bank, and pressure the victim into making payments from their account to a ‘safe account’. This ‘safe account’ will be the scammers account, and the victim will lose their money.