Why Open Finance Matters for Advisors
Why Open Finance Matters for Advisors
High-quality advice, transparency, and compliance all depend on access to quality data. Yet today, advisors and financial institutions still spend significant time manually requesting and sharing information that already exists digitally across the financial ecosystem.
The Scale of the Problem
In Ireland alone, we estimate that approximately 400,000 Letters of Authority are processed each year. Each request involves a largely manual, 30-step process that takes 3 hours to complete, typically over a four-week period.
These manual processes result in:
- Frustration for all parties
- Slow advice processes
- Substantial cost implications for advisory firms and institutions
Open Finance has the ability to replace these manual processes with live, permissioned data access.
Operational Benefits
At an operational level, APIs and interoperability remove the industry’s reliance on:
- PDFs
- Scanned statements
- Manual rekeying
- Chasing providers
The benefits are clear:
- Saving time on administrative tasks
- Reducing errors from manual data entry
- Improving advice quality with accurate, real-time data
- Better oversight and compliance
- Significantly reducing operational cost
A Fundamental Shift
This marks a shift from fragmented, document-based fact-finding to real-time financial insight.
The result? Advisers can focus on advice rather than administration.
Instead of spending hours chasing information, advisors can dedicate their time to what matters most: understanding client needs, developing appropriate strategies, and delivering value through genuine financial guidance.
The Competitive Advantage
Firms that embrace Open Finance early will gain a significant competitive advantage. They’ll be able to:
- Respond to client enquiries faster
- Deliver more accurate and comprehensive advice
- Reduce operational costs
- Improve client satisfaction and retention
- Scale their practice more efficiently
At Finerty, we’re building the infrastructure to make this transition as smooth as possible for financial advisors and institutions.