Is Open Banking free?

As part of the Second European Payment Services Directive (<a href="/glossarycollection/the-second-payment-services-directive" style="color:#48277C;" target="_blank" title="The Second Payment Services Directive">PSD2</a>) a basic set of services must be exposed, for free, by any institution that provides online access to payment accounts. 

The basic services are: 

1) access to account information i.e. allowing a Third-Party Provider (<a href="/glossarycollection/third-party-provider" style="color:#48277C;" target="_blank" title="Third-Party Provider">TPP</a>) to retrieve information on basic account details and transaction history; 

2) access to payment initiation i.e. enabling a TPP to create a payment on behalf of the customer; 

3) access to account balances to determine whether there are sufficient funds to make a payment. 

Banks are not allowed to charge TPPs for the mandatory provision of these basic services but they are allowed to charge for any premium services they offer over and above these basic services. [An example might be if a bank decided to create a premium commercial service that offered a credit score combined with identity verification].