Following the lead of the UK, and having completed a consultative exercise, the Australian Government is planning to give bank customers the right to appoint various government-approved businesses to handle their bank account data and various metadata.

The 'consumer data right' and the right to 'open banking,' the term that the UK uses, will begin to operate in July next year. The 'big four' banks - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia National Bank, Westpac and ANZ - are expected to open their records up first, with the remainder following on.

Bursting forth with such language-mangling phrases as 'review into' and 'he will be supported on the review,' a statement on the Treasury's website promises to give bank customers the right to oblige all Australian deposit-takers, including private banks and the 'big four' banks, to hand the management of their data over to the financial technology or 'fintech' start-ups/companies of their choice.

The entry reads: "The review into open banking in Australia has concluded. On 9 May 2018, the Government agreed to [its] recommendations."

The review to which the entry alludes might be related to a set of recommendations that the Government released in February. These suggested that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission should set standards on the subject and hand out licences, helped by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. All deposit-takers are regulated already and therefore, if all goes well with the plan, should be instantly qualified to receive data. The rest are to be subjected to risk assessments before they receive their licences. As in the UK, the 'fintechs' are to use Application Programming Interfaces to share data. The Government expects the transitional period to last for about a year.

The 'riskiest' data, in the Government's parlance, should be subject to an additional licence. It is not known whether the Government wants to 'grandfather' the big banks in without comment. Between them, they hold a 95% share of the entire Australian finance industry.

Treasurer Scott Morrison has been quoted as saying: "This will help to break down barriers that see customers staying with their banks even when there are better deals elsewhere. Open banking will also allow entrepreneurs to develop new services and products tailored to customers’ needs, disrupting those existing business models within the banking sector that do not put customers first."