Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Open season
Financial services | Digital
July 23, 2021 – Regulators worldwide have encouraged open banking. The UK regulator has gone furthest; as a result, as of December 2020, the UK had issued some 200 licenses for open-banking APIs, or application programming interfaces—shortcuts that make it easier for software developers to build new applications. EU countries, which were initially less directive about API specifications for developers, have not issued licenses at the same pace.
To read the article, see “Financial services unchained: the ongoing rise of open financial data,” July 11, 2021.
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Visual form
Multi-line country growth chart with a side CAGR panel.
Layout / body structure
The chart is a single time-series panel read left to right from September 2019 to March 2021, with a narrow CAGR strip on the far right. Trace the UK line first because it sits well above the others, then compare the smaller country lines below it and finish with the CAGR labels in the side panel.
What is being compared
The chart compares the number of third-party providers regulated in six countries: the UK, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It compares both the absolute size of each country’s open-banking ecosystem and how quickly each one grew across the period.
Measurement system
The vertical axis measures the count of third-party providers regulated by individual countries. Each country is represented by a distinct colored line, and the right-hand side strip lists CAGR values for the same lines.
Visible structure inside the graphic
A dominant dark line for the UK climbs across the full panel, while five lower lines cluster much closer to the bottom of the scale. At the right edge, dotted connectors route each line into a vertical CAGR box, where the growth rates are printed alongside the endpoint ordering.
Main takeaway from the visual
The UK is far ahead of the EU peers in both absolute scale and continuing growth, even though some smaller markets are growing faster from lower starting bases. The distance between the UK line and the rest remains large throughout the chart, so the biggest visual story is leadership in scale rather than a narrowing gap.
Key standout values or extremes
The UK line rises from a little above 110 providers in late 2019 to just over 200 by March 2021. Germany and Sweden finish in the 30s, while France, Lithuania, and the Netherlands remain nearer the low-20s. In the CAGR strip, the UK shows 47 percent, Germany 4 percent, Sweden 30 percent, Lithuania 54 percent, the Netherlands 108 percent, and France 123 percent.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.