Authors: Sharon Collard and Jamie Evans
Funded by: Nationwide Building Society
Published by: University of Bristol
Publication date: March 2021

Open Banking for Good (OB4G) was launched by Nationwide Building Society in 2018 and ran throughout 2019 into early 2020. As one of the first initiatives in the Cabinet Office-led Inclusive Economy Partnership, its aim was to help create and scale Open Banking-enabled apps and online services that would benefit the one in four UK adults who are ‘financially squeezed’. It used a Grounded Innovation approach that brings together user experts (Charity Partners), solution experts (fintech Challengers) and process experts (Nationwide’s OB4G team) to solve real and grounded challenges, where ‘real’ means evidenced challenges that exist, and ‘grounded’ means involving both experts that understand the challenge and users that regularly face it.

Nationwide commissioned PFRC to evaluate the process and impact of the OB4G programme to help build a new evidence base around the potential of technology and innovation to ‘move the dial’ on big social issues. This knowledge sharing has become even more important in the wake of COVID-19, which brings opportunities to use a Grounded Innovation approach to ‘build back better’ and improve the UK’s financial wellbeing. The process evaluation was published in December 2019. This report sets out the findings from the evaluation of the impact of OB4G.