Version | Date | Author | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
2.0.0 | 29 Jun 2017 | Open Banking Open Data API Team | This is the baseline version. |
This specification includes all relevant artefacts for the Open Data Personal Current Account (PCA) API Specification.
Currently, price comparison websites have to obtain their PCA product data either via bank proprietary APIs, via information collected by dedicated data capture agencies or via "screen scraping" (i.e. capturing product web page information and writing scripts to extract relevant data). This work is complex and prone to error, so having a standard API would make the data capture side much easier and allow more third party providers to provide applications that could target particular consumer markets.
This endpoint can contain multiple brands owned by a particular banking group. Each brand can own multiple PCA products.
This section covers PCA attributes that will change only under rare circumstances (see Core Product section below for additional attributes that will be updated regularly). In this section the following information can be provided:-
Within our design, we have a concept of a "marketing state" for the product. This concept is required because for any "On Sale" PCA product:-
We'll illustrate this with a complex example.
CMA9Bank has a PCA product that was first advertised on 1/1/2017 and has the following features currently:-
The original marketing states can be shown as follows:-
Identification | PredecessorID | MarketingState | StartDate | EndDate | PromotionLength | PromotionLengthPeriod | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CP1 | Promotional | 1/1/2017 | 31/12/9999 | 9 | Month | When an accountholder opens the PCA, they will receive an initial promotional offer lasting 9 months. Attached to this state will be the original initial promotional interest rate information. | |
CP2 | CP1 | Promotional | 1/1/2017 | 31/12/9999 | 12 | Month | 9 months after the account has been opened, the customer will receive a 2nd promotional offer lasting 12 months |
CR1 | CP2 | Regular | 1/1/2017 | 31/12/9999 | After the 2nd promotional period has expired, the accountholder will be moved to the regular interest rate. |
On 17th July, CMA9Bank are going to change the offer, so that only 3% is paid in the 1st 9 months. The marketing states on 16th July will look like this:-
Identification | PredecessorID | MarketingState | StartDate | EndDate | PromotionLength | PromotionLengthPeriod | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CP1 | Promotional | 1/1/2017 | 16/7/2017 | 9 | Month | When an accountholder opens the PCA, they will receive an initial promotional offer lasting 9 months. Attached to this state will be the original initial promotional interest rate information. | |
CP2 | CP1 | Promotional | 1/1/2017 | 31/12/9999 | 12 | Month | 9 months after the account has been opened, the customer will receive a 2nd promotional offer lasting 12 months |
CR1 | CP2 | Regular | 1/1/2017 | 31/12/9999 | After the 2nd promotional period has expired, the accountholder will be moved to the regular interest rate. | ||
CP3 | Promotional | 17/7/2017 | 31/12/9999 | 9 | Month | When an accountholder opens the PCA, they will receive an initial promotional offer lasting 9 months. Attached to this, will be the revised initial promotional offer interest rate information. |
And on the 17th July, the marketing states will look like this:-
Identification | PredecessorID | MarketingState | StartDate | EndDate | PromotionLength | PromotionLengthPeriod | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CP2 | CP3 | Promotional | 1/1/2017 | 31/12/9999 | 12 | Month | 9 months after the account has been opened, the customer will receive a 2nd promotional offer lasting 12 months |
CR1 | CP2 | Regular | 1/1/2017 | 31/12/9999 | After the 2nd promotional period has expired, the accountholder will be moved to the regular interest rate. | ||
CP3 | Promotional | 17/7/2017 | 31/12/9999 | 9 | Month | When an accountholder opens the PCA, they will receive an initial promotional offer lasting 9 months. Attached to this, will be the revised initial promotional offer interest rate information. |
Notes:
This sections includes information that can change relatively often. Information to be provided includes:-
In this section, information about the interest rates that are payable to the consumer are listed. Interest rates are typically standard variable rates, with rates potentially changing many times during the course of the products. In addition to the 'Regular' standard variable rates, some PCA products also provide for more attractive 'Promotion' interest rates which are fixed for a relatively short duration.
Another feature of interest rates is that certain PCA products will pay more attractive rates, as the amount deposited and maintained in the account increases.
This section has been designed to allow the implementer to provide whole or tiered interest rates.
Currently, most PCA price comparison websites focus on the promotional or regular interest rate (where there is no promotion) as their main mechanism for providing a comparison of PCA products.
The Maximum Monthly Charge (MMC) focuses on fees & charges due to unauthorised borrowing. Price comparison websites are currently more focussed on details of arranged overdraft rates and accompanying fees & charges. There are also grey areas e.g. emergency borrowing which is a short term provision for situations where a customer has exceeded their arranged overdraft or authorised credit limit but only by a small amount and only for a short period.
As such, this section has been named 'Overdraft/Borrowing' so as to cover situations of authorised borrowing e.g. an Arranged Overdraft and unauthorised borrowing e.g. customer exceeding a credit limit by more than a buffer amount and with no arranged overdraft or emergency borrowing facility in place. An Authorised Indicator flag allows the implementer to indicate whether the borrowing is authorised or not.
Details as to any capping (i.e. maximum amount that can be charged to a customer for a particular period) for any fee/charge can also be specified.
In this section, criteria such as residency and age restrictions that are necessary for opening an account are provided. Note eligibility criteria for features & benefits are treated in that section.
In this section, information about any inherent product features or value-added benefits (whether they're charged or not) can be captured. Benefits can also be grouped together e.g. if a package of benefits is supplied. For any benefits group, benefit details may be individually added or notes simply added to the benefits group.
For a benefits group or for individual benefits, any eligibility criteria required to obtain that benefit can be specified as notes.
Fees & Charges that a customer has to pay can be specified for Borrowing and in the Features & Benefits section. The long tail of additional fees & charges that are not associated to either of those 2 areas can be specified in this section.
Details as to any capping (i.e. maximum amount that can be charged to a customer for a particular period) for any fee/charge can also be specified in this section.
The following UML Class Diagram provides the hierarchical structure of the message in a graphical form, which is easier to digest.