Open Banking for Financial Inclusion: Challenges and Opportunities in Muslim-Majority Countries

Financial inclusion as a means to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals has been at the center of attention of international financial institutions, policymakers, and academia. The recent advancement of FinTech, enabled by Open Banking, introduced new tools and opportunities to facilitate financial inclusion. Therefore, global institutions, such as the World Bank Group, present the emerging concept of Open Banking as an effective tool to increase access to finance by the lower-income population. However, due to the relative novelty of Open Banking and, consequently, lack of empirical data, the topic is yet to gain sufficient exposure in academia. With low levels of financial inclusion, Muslim-majority countries have started introducing Open Banking. Therefore, it is timely to study the advantages and risks of Open Banking and how it can be designed to improve financial inclusion. This chapter presents an attempt to contribute to the academic discourse on Open Banking and financial inclusion within the context of Muslim-majority countries.