Open banking: Credit market competition when borrowers own the data

Open banking facilitates data sharing consented to by customers who generate the data, with the regulatory goal of promoting competition between traditional banks and chal-lenger fintech entrants. We study lending market competition when sharing banks' cus-tomer transaction data enables better borrower screening for fintechs. Open banking pro-motes competition if it helps level the playing field for all lenders in screening borrowers; however, if it over-empowers fintechs, it can also hinder competition and leave all borrow-ers worse off. Due to the credit quality inference from borrowers' sign-up decisions, this remains true even if borrowers have the control of whether to share their banking data. We also study extensions with fintech affinities and data sharing on borrower preferences. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.