Truist Teams With Mastercard for First Open Banking Integration

Truist launched its inaugural open banking integration, connecting first to Mastercard’s open finance technology, according to a Thursday (Feb. 12) press release.

The platform is designed to give consumers and small businesses “secure, centralized access to their financial data, unlocking transparency, personalization and control across a growing ecosystem of trusted FinTech apps,” the release said.

These customers can connect to the apps of their choice via direct connections to Mastercard’s open finance platform, letting them manage which applications can view their financial data and for what reason, without sharing usernames or passwords, per the release.

“Open banking digitally empowers Truist clients and small business owners with secure, personalized experiences and a more holistic view of their financial lives,” Sherry Graziano, Truist’s head of digital, client experience and marketing, said in the release. “This platform provides more secure data sharing, new pathways for those with limited credit histories, more choices for how to pay and get paid, and better insight into overall financial health, all with the safeguards our clients expect.”

Bart Willaert, executive vice president for open finance, Americas, at Mastercard said in the release that trust ensures customers “can tap into their full potential.”

“With our shared values of trust and security, we are delighted to offer the clients and small businesses Truist serves seamless connections to all that open banking has to offer,” he said in the release.

While open banking has been popular in places like the United Kingdom, it hasn’t totally caught on in the United States, PYMNTS reported in September.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Consumer Sentiment About Open Banking Payments” found that around 11% of U.S. consumers used open banking payments, and 56% of consumers who had not used open banking pointed to security and trust concerns as key factors holding them back.

“While close to 43% trust their banks to deliver open banking services, that leaves much work in awareness and credibility,” PYMNTS reported in August.

Meanwhile, Truist announced Feb. 3 that it launched a new integrated receivables platform, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the matching of payments to invoices for commercial and corporate customers.

The platform is designed to unify disparate payment and remittance data, addressing a long-held friction point in corporate back-office operations.

For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B Newsletter.