Post by Bank for International Settlements – BIS

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has successfully completed Project Aperta, exploring how cross-border interconnectivity through open finance interoperability can help reduce frictions and costs in global finance. Cross-border finance remains more challenging than the movement of people, goods and services. Businesses - particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - often face duplicated processes, repeated manual paper-based checks and limited access to global financial services. While nearly 95 jurisdictions have implemented domestic open finance frameworks to support the digital exchange of financial data and services, their benefits rarely extend across borders due to differences in technical standards, data formats and trust frameworks. Project Aperta, run by the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, addressed this challenge by designing, developing, and testing a prototype for cross-border open finance interconnectivity via application programming interfaces (APIs). The prototype functions as a “network of networks,” connecting existing domestic infrastructures through a neutral interoperability layer. It successfully linked the open finance networks of the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Hong Kong SAR, and India. The prototype also demonstrates and assesses the feasibility, viability and desirability of the solution through two practical use cases: cross-border bank account opening and trade finance. It was tested in collaboration with private sector commercial banks and fintechs from the five jurisdictions. Project Aperta is a collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Central Bank of The UAE, Banco Central do Brasil, the Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), the International Chamber of Commerce Digital Standards Initiative and the HKU-SCF Fintech Academy. Find out more: https://bit.ly/4uDG1sX