Does the reputation of UK Open Banking depend on B2B adoption of Commercial VRPs?

cVRPs could save thousands of businesses valuable time in managing transactions and reduce administrative overhead.

In autumn 2024, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed the completion of the final 'Roadmap for Open Banking.' This meant that all nine major banks under its purview had implemented key open banking services, including Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) for sweeping.

Enabled by Open Banking APIs, sweeping allowed customers to set up automated transfers between two bank accounts in their name based on pre-defined instructions: for example, moving money from a current account to a savings account to take advantage of improved interest rates, or moving money to protect against a negative account balance and the resulting overdraft fees.

Implementing VRPs for sweeping was an important milestone, but its impact has not been transformative. If the UK is serious about being a global leader in open banking, it needs to show tangible success with upcoming implementations of Commercial Variable Recurring Payments (cVRPs).