Our senior associate at Grupo Corporativo y Negocios, Vicente Martínez, talked to Diario Financiero about the benefits of the open finance system created by the Fintech Law.
Based on the fact that individuals are the owners of their financial information and can exercise control over it, the system is expected to promote competition, innovation and inclusion in the financial environment.
The Fintech Law creates the Open Finance System (OFS), a set of rules and procedures that allows the exchange of general information from an information provider institution, as well as from customers who have expressly consented to it, to information-based financial service providers and payment initiation service providers, on the grounds that individuals are holders of their financial information and can exercise control over it.
In this way, information-based service providers and payment initiators will be able to connect via API (Application Programming Interface) with customers’ financial institutions.
The national financial system is robust, but it can continue to advance to converge to a higher level of development and with better risk management’, defines the director of financial risk of PwC Chile, Patricio Jaramillo, who details that this possibility is more efficient with the inclusion of this system, where technology and innovation are fundamental to open new opportunities.
Milestone that modernizes the system
In this sense, the senior associate of the corporate and business group of Albagli Zaliasnik (az), Vicente Martínez, indicates that the law marks a milestone in the modernization of the national financial system. ‘By promoting greater availability of information, it lays the groundwork for a profound transformation in the way we interact with financial services,‘ he explains, adding that from a legal perspective, the SFA represents a significant advance in the protection of consumers’ rights. ‘And by allowing them to have greater control over their own financial data, users or clients are empowered to make informed decisions and access more personalized products and services‘, Martinez maintains.
It is a great opportunity for the generation of personalized and more efficient products, says Rodrigo Ortiz, an academic at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the Alberto Hurtado University, “However, it is vital to adequately safeguard client information and to have minimum technical and security standards”, he notes, “Likewise, the adoption of advanced technologies and a clear regulatory framework could attract foreign investment, positioning Chile as a regional leader in financial innovation”, points out Danilo Borquez, director of Computer Science Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering and Sciences of the Adolfo Ibáñez University.
The SFA implementation period will be gradual, depending on the role played by each participant within this scheme. The first stage has a term of 24 months for its entry into force, which is set for July 2026. During the two years until this deadline, the adaptations required for implementation by each of the participants will be made, during which time the technical manuals with the specifications for the operation of the system will also be developed. Total implementation of the standard is estimated to take five years.
