Open Banking in the UK vs. Canada: Five Years of Lessons We Can Import
The UK took four years to reach 4.5 million users, then compounded to 18.8 million. What that curve suggests for Canada, and where it breaks down.
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Canada is about to run an experiment the United Kingdom already finished. The UK mandated open banking in January 2018, spent six years completing the roadmap, and took until 2025 to reach mainstream adoption. Every stage of that curve is documented in public.
The short version of what the UK data shows: adoption was slow for years, then compounded. Four years after launch the UK had 4.5 million users. By June 2026 it was reporting 18.81 million user connections and 2.81 billion API calls in a single month. Nothing about the early years predicted the later ones, and the regulator's own assessment is that this is normal rather than disappointing.
Canada's framework became law in March 2026 with no announced launch date. Here is what the UK's curve suggests about what comes next, and where the two markets differ enough that the comparison breaks.
What actually happened in the UK
Open banking launched in the UK on 13 January 2018, mandated by the Competition and Markets Authority through its Retail Banking Market Investigation Order.
Four years in, Open Banking Limited reported 4.5 million regular users, comprising 3.9 million consumers and 600,000 small businesses, and noted that one million new active users were being added every six months. For a mandated national framework four years after launch, in a country of roughly 67 million people, that is a slow start.
The roadmap itself was not confirmed complete until September 2024, more than six and a half years after launch, when the Competition and Markets Authority announced full completion.
Then the curve steepened. Open Banking Limited's Impact Report 7, published May 2025, reported 13.3 million active users, or one in five UK consumers and small businesses, up from one in 17 in March 2021. By July 2025 it reported 15.16 million user connections and 2.04 billion monthly transactions, a 34% year-on-year increase. Across full-year 2025 there were 351 million open banking payments, up 57%, and 24 billion successful API calls, up 27%.
In July 2026 Open Banking Limited announced more than one billion cumulative open banking payments through the UK's major high street banks, more than 100 billion cumulative API calls across the CMA9, and a record 2.81 billion monthly API calls in June, against 18.81 million user connections.
One measurement caveat that gets lost in the headlines: Open Banking Limited notes that user figures represent connections across reporting brands rather than unique individuals. The direction is unambiguous; the absolute person-count is softer than it looks.
The UK adoption curve:
| Date | Reported position |
|---|---|
| Jan 2018 | Launch under CMA mandate |
| Mar 2021 | 1 in 17 consumers and small businesses |
| Jan 2022 | 4.5 million regular users |
| Sep 2024 | Roadmap confirmed complete |
| Mar 2025 | 13.3 million active users, 1 in 5 |
| Dec 2025 | 351M payments and 24B API calls across the year |
| Jun 2026 | 18.81M connections, 2.81B monthly API calls |
Was that slow?
The Financial Conduct Authority addressed this directly in an October 2025 research note by Aimee Murray and Jed Buckenham. Its conclusion was that uptake is not underperforming, and that open banking may simply be tracking a typical technology adoption curve, while noting that public awareness and confidence remain uneven.
That is a useful finding for Canada, because it reframes the first few years. If Canadian adoption looks disappointing in 2028, the UK precedent suggests that is what the middle of an S-curve looks like from inside it, not evidence the framework failed.
Analysis by EY for Open Banking Limited, published March 2026, put cumulative UK benefit at £8.3 billion with an annual opportunity of £43 billion at maturity. Canada's own draft regulations carry an estimated $13.2 billion in total payment volume over ten years against $457.7 million in total present-value costs, per the Canada Gazette of June 2026. Both are projections rather than outcomes, and should be read as such.
Where the two markets differ
Three differences matter enough to change what Canada should expect.
Canada starts with an installed base. The UK built adoption from near zero, with the launch itself creating the behaviour. Canada does not. About nine million Canadians already share financial data by handing over banking credentials, according to the Department of Finance Canada and the Canada Gazette. Those people have already decided they want the outcome. They are using an unsanctioned route to get it.
That is a materially different starting position. The UK had to persuade people that sharing bank data was worth doing. Canada mostly has to migrate people who are already doing it onto a better rail. Cold-start is not the problem; conversion is.
Canada's phase one is also narrower. The UK framework included payment initiation from the beginning, and payments are where the UK's most-quoted growth numbers come from. Canada's phase one is read-only, with write access deferred to a second phase that the Department of Finance Canada framed as 12 to 18 months of further policy work from Budget 2025.
So the metric that made UK open banking look successful, payment volume, is not available to Canada at launch. Canadian progress will have to be judged on data-sharing adoption alone for some time, and anyone benchmarking Canada against UK payment figures is comparing different products.
Canada also excludes derived data. Credit ratings, spending categorizations and budgeting recommendations sit outside scope, per the Department of Finance Canada's Budget 2025 materials.
The UK is not the fastest adopter to learn from. Research published by the Bank for International Settlements in March 2026 recorded Korea at 36 million subscribers and 194 million registered accounts, averaging 20 API calls per person per month as of December 2023, and Brazil at 55 calls per user per month in March 2025. Both run at far higher per-user intensity than the UK.
If the question is how to make a framework heavily used rather than merely available, Korea and Brazil are the more instructive cases. The same BIS research also found adoption lower among less-educated and lower-income individuals, which is worth holding alongside any argument that open banking expands financial inclusion by default.
The lessons that transfer
Four, and the first is the one most likely to be ignored.
Consent friction is the constraint, not availability. Open Banking Limited's own 2019 analysis found roughly 50% completion on customer authentications, with complex multi-step journeys approaching zero. The UK spent years discovering that the framework existing did not mean people could get through it. The Financial Conduct Authority removed the 90-day re-authentication requirement in November 2021 specifically because the friction was costing connections.
Canada gets to design its consent journeys knowing this. That is the single most valuable import.
Second, the roadmap takes longer than the legislation. The UK's took six and a half years from launch to confirmed completion. Canada's Act is law; the operating rules are not finished, and phase two has not started.
Third, adoption compounds rather than arrives. Four years to 4.5 million, then 13.3 million within three more. Judging the framework at year two is judging it at the flattest part of the curve.
Fourth, awareness lags capability. The Financial Conduct Authority found public awareness and confidence uneven seven years in. Building the rail does not build the demand.
What we couldn't establish
No Canadian adoption figures exist, because the framework is not operational. There are no users, API calls or payment volumes to report, and no announced go-live date in any primary source.
There is also no formal lessons-learned retrospective from Open Banking Limited, the Competition and Markets Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority aimed at other jurisdictions. Everything above is inferred from published adoption data and the FCA's and BIS's own analyses, not handed down as guidance.
Common questions
When did UK open banking launch?
13 January 2018, mandated by the Competition and Markets Authority through its Retail Banking Market Investigation Order.
How many people use open banking in the UK?
Open Banking Limited reported 18.81 million user connections in June 2026, noting these represent connections across reporting brands rather than unique individuals.
Was UK open banking adoption slow?
The Financial Conduct Authority concluded in October 2025 that uptake is not underperforming and may simply track a typical technology adoption curve.
How does Canada's framework differ from the UK's?
Canada's phase one is read-only, with payment initiation deferred to a second phase, and derived data excluded from scope.
How many Canadians already share bank data?
About nine million, by providing banking credentials, according to the Department of Finance Canada.
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