APIContext has released its UK Open Banking API Performance 2023-2024 Report, the annual analysis of the performance of the open banking APIs exposed by the large CMA9 UK banks (the nine largest banks required by UK law to provide open banking services), traditional High Street banks, credit card providers, building societies, and new digital banks (neobanks).
API performance is crucial for open banking as it ensures fast, reliable, and secure data exchanges between banks and third-party providers and should be prioritised by all banks to meet regulatory requirements, stay competitive, and deliver the speed and security that modern customers demand in their financial interactions. Doing so enables seamless customer experiences and fosters trust in the open banking ecosystem.
This report highlights key API trends and the current challenges impacting the UK open Banking industry – which is widely viewed as the world leader in the open banking sphere.
The report uncovered the following findings:
Bank Type Roles Have Changed:
- The report reveals neobanks are leading in both availability and speed. For example, neobanks like Tide and Monzo excel in API performance, offering near-perfect availability and rapid response times for a superior user experience. In contrast, CMA9 banks maintain stable but slower services, while traditional banks lag significantly, with high latencies (up to 4500ms) and inefficient API call handling, impacting both user experience and operational costs, a trend that had been identified in previous reports.
Cloud Providers Variability Has Increased
- Cloud provider performance has seen a general decline across all platforms compared to previous reports, despite variability increasing. Azure showed the most significant decline, especially in Northern Europe, where latency rose by 80%, regularly exceeding 2,000ms. Meanwhile, AWS and IBM outperformed Azure and Google Cloud, maintaining p99 times under 600ms, solidifying their reliability for hosting open banking APIs.
Data Centre Choice Matters for Banking Fintech Apps
- Akamai Connected Cloud (ACC) UK and AWS UK deliver the best performance for open banking applications, with p99 response times of approximately 1084ms and 1150ms respectively, making them ideal for critical services. In contrast, Azure and Google data centres lag behind, with Azure consistently slow in the UK and Ireland, and Google showing higher latency in Northern and Eastern Europe.
“While the UK’s Open Banking ecosystem continues to lead globally, year-on-year analysis from this report highlights both progress and emerging challenges,” said Mayur Upadhyaya, CEO of APIContext. “The narrowing performance gap between traditional CMA9 banks and neobanks marks a reversal of prior trends, reflecting improvement by some traditional players and stagnation among digital challengers. Meanwhile, the performance variability of a leading cloud provider underscores the critical need for resilient infrastructure choices.
Upadhyaya continues: “The introduction of Open Banking Standard v4.0 provides a vital opportunity to reassess API performance and conformance, setting the stage for renewed ecosystem growth. However, with the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) driving improved uptime and performance across Europe, the UK must act decisively to maintain its leadership. To foster innovation and trust, Open Banking endpoints must be fast, reliable, and conformant.”
Having evaluated key performance metrics, including API endpoint availability and reliability, latency metrics, cloud provider performance, and a comparative analysis of different bank types, the data for the report was gathered from APIContext monitoring Financial-grade API (FAPI) consent endpoints. Using an active monitoring platform, approximately 8 million API calls from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024 were conducted.
To download a copy of the APIContext UK Open Banking API Performance 2023-2024 Report, click here.
