Why FiDA Is an Opportunity, Not a Cost: A Business Perspective
For many financial institutions, the upcoming FiDA regulation is synonymous with yet another compliance burden. This is a dangerously short-sighted view, increasingly highlighted by analysts and advisory firms. EY stresses that an approach limited to regulatory compliance “may carry a real risk of customer attrition1.” By contrast, institutions that treat FiDA as an opportunity can not only strengthen customer relationships but also open new business models and build sustainable competitive advantage.
What You Should Know:
- FiDA as a structural shift. The regulation introduces not only new obligations but also a new model for real-time access to financial data.
- Risk versus opportunity. Institutions that treat FiDA as a mandatory cost risk customer attrition, while those that recognize its strategic potential will gain a market advantage.
- Technology as an enabler. Harmonized data and modern APIs become the foundation not only for compliance but also for service personalization and new business models.
FiDA and Open Finance: Towards a New Model of Customer Engagement
FiDA, the Financial Data Access Regulation, is a legislative proposal introduced by the European Union in June 2023. Its objective is to establish a harmonized framework for open finance. The regulation is designed to grant customers and authorized third parties real-time access to a broad spectrum of financial data—from bank accounts and loans, to insurance, investments, and digital assets.
Set to apply from 2027, FiDA underscores the need for financial institutions to gradually prepare their systems, processes, and technologies to meet these requirements.
Monetization of Financial Data
FiDA transforms financial data from being solely a regulatory obligation into a new class of assets that institutions can monetize, creating additional revenue streams and enabling innovative business models.
The business potential is significant. The European data monetization market already exceeded USD 800 million in 2023 and is expanding at nearly 25 percent annually. Globally, it is projected to reach more than USD 16 billion by 20302. Institutions that approach FiDA strategically will gain access to new revenue opportunities and achieve faster growth than their competitors.
Compliance Cost or Investment in the Future
The upcoming FiDA regulation may be perceived by the financial sector as another challenge—an expense and a complex obligation to implement. While understandable, this perspective is dangerously short-sighted. In reality, FiDA could become one of the most important catalysts for change in years. It provides the impetus to transform “important but not urgent” data modernization projects into a strategic priority with a strong and undeniable business case.
It is worth reframing the narrative. Requirements such as FiDA, or the broader need for continuous monitoring of the full customer relationship, should not be seen solely as costs. They can instead be approached as an opportunity to build a single, coherent foundation for competitive advantage and superior customer experience (CX). This is the moment when investment in compliance also becomes an investment in the future of customer relationships.
FiDA and PSD2: What Lessons Can Be Drawn from Previous Regulations?
As with PSD2, which opened banking APIs in Europe, many institutions treated the requirements purely as an obligation and derived only minimal benefits.
According to Roland Berger, more than 80 percent of banks stated that PSD2 represented an opportunity, but in practice few implemented new use cases at scale3. By contrast, leaders that built platforms and services based on data aggregation achieved tangible results: stronger CX, higher retention, and faster revenue growth. FiDA is expected to have a similar dynamic—only institutions that go beyond compliance will secure lasting competitive advantage.
What Does the FiDA Regulation Mean in Practice for Banks and Insurers?
At its core, FiDA requires financial institutions to provide customers and the third parties they authorize with real-time access to their data in a secure and controlled manner. This applies not only to banks but also to the broader range of financial entities, including insurers.
In practice, this opens the way to a holistic view of a customer’s finances: from everyday payments, through insurance policies, to long-term retirement goals.
Three Core Mechanisms of FiDA That Will Reshape the Financial Sector
From a business and technology strategy perspective, three mechanisms become critical in the new market environment:
- Real-time API access. The obligation to make information available immediately upon request imposes high demands on systems that have often relied on cyclical, overnight processing.
- Consent management panel. The regulation requires the creation of a transparent panel through which customers can easily manage permissions for sharing their data. By putting control directly in the hands of the customer, this tool becomes a central point of interaction, strengthening trust through transparency.
- Monetization potential of data. FiDA establishes a legal framework for “fair compensation” in exchange for data sharing. This opens the door to new business models and shifts the perception of APIs from cost centers to potential revenue streams.
These mechanisms work in synergy, but their effective implementation exposes a fundamental challenge: disorder in operational data (often referred to as “data chaos”). How can institutions give customers control over data that the institution itself cannot clearly identify?
A consent management panel loses its value if a customer cannot be certain which version of their data the permission applies to. Data consistency therefore becomes an unwritten yet critical operational requirement—and at the same time, the foundation of future competitive advantage.
FiDA and Customer Data: Why Existing Approaches Are Not Enough
Many institutions rightly emphasize that they already operate modern data warehouses and maintain an analytical Golden Record (a single, consistent customer view created for analytical purposes, as distinct from an operational Golden Record used in transactional systems). Thanks to technologies such as streaming ingestion and Change Data Capture (CDC), data warehouses are becoming increasingly responsive; in some firms, selected processes can be refreshed within seconds.
However, this does not address the core challenge. Modern data warehouses perform reliably, but their primary purpose remains analyzing the past and generating insights. They were not designed to eliminate operational data disorder in real time or to continuously synchronize information with servicing systems or mobile applications.
Beyond Analytics: The Need for an Operational MDM Hub
Attempts to adapt analytical architecture for operational purposes may work in the short term, but over time they lead to an accumulation of technical debt. Maintaining a complex web of integrations becomes costly, while the introduction of innovation slows down and carries greater risk.
Moreover, effective monitoring—for example in AML—cannot be achieved without a single, consistent, and real-time customer view. This gap between analytics and operations makes it clear that a dedicated operational Master Data Management (MDM) hub is essential.
From Cost to Investment: Hidden Business Benefits for the Financial Sector
Since institutions must in any case build a technological foundation capable of meeting regulatory requirements—an operational MDM hub and a modern, secure API layer—this should not be seen solely as a cost. It is an investment in capabilities that open new business opportunities for the organization.
Moreover, the architecture built for compliance purposes is the same one the business has long demanded in order to fully realize the vision of superior customer experience (CX). With a central, trusted source of real-time customer data, the organization gains the ability to:
- Deliver true real-time personalization: for example, offering travel insurance at the moment of purchasing airline tickets, rather than a week after the customer returns.
- Ensure genuine omnichannel consistency: seamlessly continuing a conversation on the call center exactly where the customer left off on the website.
- Act proactively: anticipating needs such as a leasing offer for an entrepreneur purchasing new equipment before the customer even requests it.
- Increase operational efficiency: eliminating ineffective marketing campaigns caused by inconsistent data.
- Open the door to new business models: moving from product sales to subscription-based approaches that focus on comprehensive financial well-being, with the institution proactively managing and supporting the customer’s financial needs.
It is important to emphasize that these scenarios cannot be achieved on the basis of an analytical Golden Record. The true transformation lies in the ability to connect a real-time event with the complete and trusted data context delivered by an operational MDM hub.
FiDA and Customer Experience (CX): How Will the Regulation Strengthen Customer Relationships?
When approached strategically, compliance with FiDA becomes a byproduct of building a new, foundational capability within the organization. The true value is something far greater: the ability to deliver on the promise of superior customer experience (CX) while unlocking entirely new business initiatives.
When customers gain genuine control over their data and see that the institution uses it to create value for them, loyalty ceases to be the objective of marketing campaigns—it becomes the natural outcome of a relationship built on trust.
This is why, instead of asking “What will FiDA cost us?”, institutions should be asking “How can we turn this obligation into a lasting competitive advantage based on customer trust and new revenue streams?”
