Open-Banking Consent-Economics Board Challenger — Retail Banking

The mandate

The board repeatedly asks whether its open-banking portfolio creates trusted customer utility or subsidises aggregators whose consent and support journeys the bank cannot see. Management presents API calls, active connections and cross-sell, but directors cannot connect those figures to informed permission, revocation behaviour, fraud loss, service cost and partner bargaining power across mandatory and premium propositions.

The adviser will reserve two days monthly for chair preparation, management challenge and review of a material partner or investment paper, plus five scheduled committee meetings. A written view on a serious consent or partner incident is expected within one Dutch business day. Formal compliance assessment, commercial negotiation or incident investigation requires separate authority and cannot be absorbed into cadence.

The appointment lasts ten months from January 2027. At month eight, the committee will judge whether management can apply the portfolio evidence framework unaided. A single four-month renewal may be approved by full-board vote for a named unresolved strategic question; unused days expire, and executives cannot extend the term or redirect access into delivery support.

This adviser has no line authority, executive responsibility, compliance delegation, product approval, procurement vote or partner-negotiation mandate. Advice shapes questions and conditions, while regulated executives retain every decision. The appointment cannot be represented as independent assurance of consent validity, security or customer outcome, and committee minutes must record management’s response to material challenge.

Up to two other financial-services appointments are allowed subject to disclosure of roles with banks, payment firms, aggregators, identity providers, fintechs and platform investors. Compensation from a current or prospective partner triggers recusal and may be disqualifying. Access to a competitor’s confidential consent conversion, fraud or pricing evidence cannot be reused as anonymous benchmarking.

Why the board wants this voice

Directors understand conduct, payments and customer economics but have not operated a multi-party consent platform at scale. Compliance teams explain formal permission and product teams explain growth, leaving actual customer comprehension and partner power underexamined. The board wants an operator who can challenge the portfolio without becoming a shadow product chief or vendor advocate.

What you will own

• Press directors to distinguish mandatory access, customer utility and premium data propositions before accepting aggregate open-banking adoption.
• Test whether initiation, renewal, scope change, revocation and expiry remain understandable and operationally effective across partner journeys.
• Challenge economics that omit consent support, failed connection, dispute, fraud investigation, data-provider dependency and partner concentration.
• Shape investment gates around retained customer use, permission health, attributable value, service cost and reversible partner dependence.
• Probe accountability where an aggregator designs the visible journey while the bank retains regulated data and payment obligations.
• Frame board scenarios involving compromised provider, mass revocation, disputed authorisation, unavailable identity service and partner exit.
• Coach the committee to separate technical availability, valid permission, informed customer control and commercial adoption in its records.

Candidate qualifications

• Led open-banking, payment initiation or consented-data products inside a regulated bank or scaled financial platform.
• Measured consent renewal, revocation, failure and support alongside API usage and commercial conversion.
• Changed a partner or investment decision after exposing full service, conduct, fraud or concentration economics.
• Governed customer control across bank, aggregator and identity-provider boundaries without assuming interface compliance proved understanding.
• Presented multi-party digital product decisions to a financial-services board or supervisor while preserving executive accountability.
• Managed conflicts across banks, fintechs, aggregators, identity providers, investors and technology suppliers.

Non-negotiables

• Able to attend all five Amsterdam meetings and protect two advisory days each month throughout the ten-month term.
• Will disclose all bank, fintech, aggregator, identity and payment interests before receiving partner or customer evidence.
• Accepts that product, compliance, fraud and commercial decisions remain with accountable bank executives.
• Must bring deployed open-banking evidence; generic API or digital-banking strategy alone is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe an open-banking connection metric that concealed weak customer consent or poor partner economics.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current bank, aggregator, identity or fintech interests require disclosure to this board?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you test whether revocation truly stops access across every partner and cached representation?