The FCA has identified SME lending as a priority use case for open finance as it seeks to reduce friction in access to funding. Its review found that regulation was not the principal barrier, but highlighted complex applications, duplicated checks, limited awareness of options and difficulties for businesses with limited collateral or intangible assets.
This is relevant to mortgage and protection advisers serving self-employed clients, sole traders and small partnerships. The FCA is also monitoring work on digital verification that could reduce repetitive customer checks while maintaining financial-crime controls, alongside planned Consumer Credit Act reform.
Open-finance data and AI tools could make income analysis, affordability preparation and document gathering more efficient for complex cases. Yet the regulatory direction is clear: innovation must not weaken anti-money-laundering controls, consumer protection or good customer outcomes. Advisers adopting such tools should establish clear consent, data-governance and human-review processes from the outset.