Why Connection Is the Greatest Strength in Banking

Over 10,000 years ago, the people of Tasmania became geographically isolated as rising seas formed the Bass Strait. Cut off from the mainland, a population of a few thousand hunter-gatherers gradually lost complexity in their tools and techniques. Archaeological evidence shows that innovations didn’t just slow, but they actually reversed. Tools became simpler, and some technologies disappeared entirely.

Anthropologist Rhys Jones described this phenomenon as the “slow strangulation of the mind.” It wasn’t a sudden collapse, but a gradual decline caused by isolation from broader networks of knowledge and exchange. Meanwhile, the populations that remained connected continued to innovate and advance.

Progress depends on connectivity. Isolation doesn’t preserve strength, but actually quietly erodes it. And, this lesson applies perfectly to the world of banking.

Banks Achieve Connection with Open Banking

Today, financial institutions are faced with a valuable opportunity to achieve progress with connection — and greater knowledge to create better customer experiences. Open Banking — the structured and secure consumer-permissioned sharing of data — has the potential to unlock a new wave of innovation with benefits for both institutions and the consumers. Connection through an open banking investment helps financial institutions fuel growth.

Financial institutions that leverage Open Banking can use consumer-permissioned data to offer better products and services to their customers. And, those offers can be personalized so that consumers have a better financial experience, allowing for more sophisticated ways for consumers to interact with their banks. 

With Open Banking, consumers are able to have a 360-degree view of their financial accounts. They’ll also be able to easily transfer funds and manage their money. And, data that leads to a personalized financial experience is an expectation that consumers hold for their providers. MX found that 59% of consumers reported that they expect their financial provider to leverage the data they have about them to personalize their experience.

Solving for the Hesitations

Today, many institutions remain hesitant about Open Banking, concerned about competition, data sharing, and control. These concerns are not unfounded as financial institutions should always prioritize protecting their consumers’ data.

But in trying to protect themselves and their customers, institutions risk a dangerous cost: isolating themselves from the broader financial ecosystem — and reversing the progress that connection has allowed. 

Operational policy, usage-based fees on data access, additional authentication layers, or administrative controls that introduce friction into every interaction are the very acts of isolation that halt progress. That’s exactly why the industry must advocate for consumer-first data sharing. The decline isn't quick. Rather, it’s a gradual decline that slowly separates the institution from the technology and ecosystem around them.

How MX Creates Connection

In a world where consumers expect seamless, connected financial experiences, institutions that fail to integrate and collaborate may find themselves left behind, not because they lacked capability, but because they lacked connection.

The future of banking will not be built in silos. It will be built through networks that fuel growth. MX is the solution to the connection challenges for fintechs and banks of any size. As financial institutions improve knowledge across the organization through connection, MX’s data access solution helps these institutions implement open banking strategies by:

• Providing access to secure APIs and OAuth connections
• Working across data intermediaries for the most complete data access coverage
• Giving consumers complete control over the ability to grant and revoke access to data

And, with MX, data becomes a key solution to solving for the biggest barriers to growth and drives innovation forward.