THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced that it has facilitated the establishment of the Open Finance Oversight Committee (OFOC) about a month after formulating the "Open Finance Framework."

In a virtual presser on Thursday, BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said the OFOC will be an industry-led self-governing body that will craft its own rules for membership, participation, procedures and setting of standards. 

"In establishing the open finance ecosystem, the BSP sees the value of placing the governance of the industry into a single body with explicit formalized self-governance structure where the industry standards and inter-participant business rules are housed," Diokno said.

The Open Finance Framework's main premise is consent-driven data portability, interoperability and collaborative partnerships between financial institutions and fintech players.

Under the framework, consumers will have the power to grant access to their financial data for a customer-centric product development objective. It covers different financial institutions and a broader array of financial products such as, but not limited to, banking products and services, investments, pensions, and insurance.

The issuance of the Open Finance Framework is one of the initiatives under the BSP's Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap, which aims to have 70 percent of Filipino adults with transaction accounts by 2023.

The OFOC shall include representatives from banks, non-bank financial institutions, electronic money issuers, operators of payment systems, and other relevant sectors.

"The committee shall promote non-discriminatory membership by ensuring that key areas of interest of the financial industry are adequately represented and that all participants and applicants for membership are treated fairly and consistently," the Governor said.

The OFOC shall include representatives from banks from each classification: universal/commercial, thrift, rural and digital; non-bank financial institutions, electronic money issuers, operators of payment systems, and other relevant sectors.

"With the Committee and the Framework in place, we hope to further address digital connectivity gaps in the country, with the help of our stakeholders," the governor said.

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