Financial technology and banking experts gathered at the Australian Bankers’ Association Communique have spoken in favour of better access to open data.

Finance professionals should be working to place the importance of customer’s interests at the centre of discussions around open data, while also ensuring vulnerable customers are not left behind in the innovation of more data-driven services, according to speakers at the Australian Bankers’ Association (ABA) Communique.

Speaking at the ABA open data symposium in Sydney earlier this month, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) executive general manager, digital, Pete Steel, said access to data was a key issue for the vitality of the banking sector.

“Making it easier for customers to securely access their data and share it is undoubtedly good for business and good for competition,” he said.

“[Customers] are much more worried about cyber-attacks and identity theft and maintaining their privacy and security.”

Steel said keeping customers on side by prioritising security and data protection would be paramount for the banking sector to maintain its customer trust lead over financial technology disrupters.

“We need to think beyond technology, and instead really focus on customer education, privacy, security, accountability and key safeguards to maintain customer confidence,” he said.

“In this digital era, customer security must be the foundation for our industry going forward.

“We need to come up with a well-designed and robust model, otherwise open data risks being as short-lived as the first major privacy breach.”

Fintech Australia chief executive, Danielle Szetho, said the opportunity to utilise data to get positive outcomes for customers, benefit them financially, and protect their security was possible with a conducive ecosystem.

“Unless you actually facilitate the environment for which this type of innovation can happen, you’re going to be missing out,” she said.

“The more information people actually have and the better we can actually expose that to them in a way that actually enables them to understand the position we sit, the better they can actually make decisions about what’s going to be in their best interests.”