Open Banking

A system that allows third-party financial applications to access your bank account data — with your permission — via secure APIs. In South Africa, Open Banking is used by lenders like FASTA to verify your income and bank balance in real time, without requiring you to upload documents manually. When you authorise Open Banking during a loan application, the lender reads your transaction history directly from your bank, which speeds up the decision process and can result in a more accurate affordability assessment. You can revoke access at any time. Open Banking does not give lenders the ability to move your money — it is read-only access.