What is the CMA9?

The CMA9 are the nine largest banks in the UK, as determined by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as part of the Open Banking initiative.

The CMA is an independent department of the UK government, whose aim is to promote market competition and fairness and reduce any harmful monopolies.

When the CMA first announced the Open Banking initiative back in August 2016, nine major banks were identified and required to create open source Open Banking APIs by a deadline of January 13th 2018. These nine banks were chosen due to their large combined market share of over 90% of the UK’s consumer and small business bank accounts.

Although not all of the CMA9 participants managed to meet this deadline, most of these Open Banking APIs are now available, and innovative new financial tools, services and products are starting to become available. Here at FreeAgent, we’re developing a number of exciting new technologies thanks to Open Banking, for example, Open Banking bank feeds.

Which banks are part of the CMA9?

The nine banks and building societies taking part in Open Banking, known as ‘the CMA 9’ or ‘CMA9’, are:

• AIB Group UK (trading as First Trust Bank in Northern Ireland)
• Bank of Ireland (UK)
• Barclays Bank
• HSBC Group (including First Direct and M&S)
• Lloyds Banking Group (including Bank of Scotland and Halifax)
• Nationwide Building Society
• NatWest Group (including NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank NI)
• Northern Bank Limited (trading as Danske Bank)
• Santander UK