Open banking. The buzzword that has everyone nodding in agreement, but if you stop the average person on the street—or even in the boardroom—they’d struggle to tell you what it really means. Is it APIs? Fancy fintech dashboards? Or is it just another Silicon Valley dream exported to Africa and rebranded for the local market?
The term itself carries a promise: the power to unlock financial data and empower customers with control over their financial lives. It’s supposed to be a revolution, a shift from the opaque practices of traditional banking to a new era of transparency, collaboration, and innovation. But as with every buzzword, the devil is in the details. What does open banking truly mean in practice? And more importantly, is it living up to its promise in our part of the world?
In Nigeria, names like Mono, Okra, and Stitch have become synonymous with this supposed revolution. They’ve raised millions of dollars, signed partnerships with banks, and built tools that make the financial ecosystem more connected than ever. They’ve done what many said couldn’t be done, but here’s the real question: are they truly open banking, or are we just calling a goat a cow because it has four legs?
To get to the bottom of this, we need to rewind a bit. What is open banking supposed to be? And how do these companies stack up against the ideal? Let’s dive in.
Open banking, at its core, is not about APIs or data aggregation
Those are just the tools. The real promise of open banking lies in its philosophy—a mandate that shifts power from financial institutions to the customers they serve.
Globally, the concept of open banking is underpinned by regulation. These frameworks don’t just encourage banks to share data; they enforce it. Why? Because they understand that financial institutions won’t willingly open their vaults of customer information unless someone holds their feet to the fire.
At its heart, open banking is about giving you control over your financial data—data that institutions have hoarded for years, using it to create products that work for them, not you. It’s supposed to democratize access to financial services by allowing third-party providers to build solutions on top of the banking infrastructure.
But here’s the kicker: it’s not just about sharing data. True open banking goes a step further. It’s about standardized, secure, and customer-consented data sharing. And it’s not supposed to feel like a privilege; it’s supposed to be a right.
So, where do Mono, Okra, and Stitch fit into this grand ideal? Let’s take a closer look at what they’re doing—and where they might be falling short.
Is Mono truly “open banking”?
Mono is one of the leading names in Nigeria’s fintech space, often associated with open banking. They’ve built tools that simplify how businesses access financial data and collect payments, and they’ve done so with explicit user consent.
Mono launched in 2020 with a simple promise: to help businesses access bank account data with the user’s consent. It’s been a fast rise for them: within a year, they were processing 5 million data sets per hour.
In April 2024, Mono collaborated with Mastercard to introduce account-to-account (A2A) payments and a suite of other open banking products, powered by Mastercard Gateway.
To understand Mono’s place in the open banking conversation, we need to break down what they do. At its core, Mono provides APIs and widgets that allow businesses to securely access a user’s bank account—if the user consents. With these tools, businesses can retrieve data like transaction histories, account balances, and even a customer’s verified identity for KYC processes. Need a bank statement? Mono’s solution does that in minutes, bypassing the tedious back-and-forth we’re all used to.
They don’t stop there. Payments? Mono has a product for that too. With DirectPay, businesses can accept bank-to-bank payments directly, skipping cards and account numbers. Customers authenticate these payments by connecting their bank accounts, and the transaction is secure, seamless, and same-day.
Now, Mono is doing some fantastic work in Nigeria’s financial ecosystem, but does that mean it’s truly open banking? Let’s unpack it.
Is Mono playing by the rules?
Nigeria actually has a regulatory framework for open banking—thanks to the CBN. They’ve laid out clear guidelines, including licenses for players like Account Information Service Providers (AISPs) and Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs).
Here’s the catch: The rules are not yet active as the CBN is yet to instruct the banks to commence open banking Instead, Mono has built their own connections with banks, creating proprietary APIs to power their services. While this approach works, it doesn’t exactly match the standardized, regulated ecosystem true open banking is supposed to deliver.
Who’s really in control?
Open banking is supposed to put customers in the driver’s seat. They decide who gets access to their data, for how long, and for what purpose. Mono offers consent-based tools like their Connect widget, which is great for letting users share their data securely.
But here’s the problem: the control stops there. Customers can give access through an app powered by Mono, and can also unlink their accounts from apps they shared data with, anytime.
Are we talking open or proprietary?
True open banking relies on standardized APIs. These ensure that anyone—from a small startup to a big tech company—can plug into the ecosystem seamlessly. Mono, on the other hand, builds custom integrations with banks and maintains those connections themselves.
While this approach helps businesses today, it doesn’t follow the open ethos where everyone has equal and standardized access. Think of it like building private roads instead of public highways.
So, is Mono open banking?
Not quite. What Mono does is more accurately described as “open finance” or “data aggregation.” That’s not a knock on their model—far from it. Mono is solving real problems in Nigeria’s financial ecosystem: breaking down data silos, streamlining customer onboarding, and enabling innovation.
But calling it open banking might be a stretch. It’s a step in the right direction, no doubt, but we’re not quite there yet.
That said, Mono is filling a critical gap. They’re showing what’s possible in a market where open banking is still finding its footing.
Next, let’s talk about Stitch and see how they compare. Are they playing the same game, or are they taking things further?
Is Stitch truly “open banking”?
Stitch Money, founded in 2019 and headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, is a fintech company that provides open banking and payment solutions across Africa.
The company secured $21 million in Series A funding, showing investor confidence in its mission to enhance financial infrastructure.
Stitch offers a unified API that enables businesses to access various financial services, including:
Pay-ins: Accept payments via multiple methods such as Pay by Bank, card, digital wallets, cash, manual transfers, debit orders, and cryptocurrency.
Payouts: Facilitate disbursements to customers, vendors, suppliers, and employees.
LinkPay: A product that tokenizes user financial accounts to enable secure, one-click payments.
These services are designed to streamline digital payments, reduce reconciliation burdens, minimize fraud, and enhance the overall payment experience for businesses and their customers.
In South Africa, where Stitch was founded, open banking is still in its infancy. Stitch expanded to Nigeria in 2021, entering a market with a more mature and clearly defined open banking regulatory framework.
From its positioning, Stitch Money is closer to an aggregator than a traditional open banking platform. While it facilitates connections between banks and third-party services, the company appears to rely more on screen scraping—a method where user credentials are used to access data—rather than fully compliant, secure APIs. This distinction matters because true open banking hinges on API infrastructure, ensuring security, scalability, and regulatory alignment. Screen scraping, though effective in markets without robust open banking standards, falls short in meeting the transparency and consumer protection goals open banking aims to achieve.
What Stitch Money does exceptionally well
They address the absence of comprehensive open banking infrastructure in these markets. By building connections and offering services that mimic open banking’s promises, it has found a way to support fintechs and other financial service providers in delivering better experiences to their users.
However, this approach often sacrifices the principles of true open banking in favor of expediency. The lack of standardized APIs means that Stitch’s model depends heavily on bespoke integrations, which are neither as scalable nor as transparent as the open banking ideal.
To be clear, this is not a knock on Stitch Money. The company is filling a critical gap in markets that desperately need financial connectivity, and its work undoubtedly expands access to digital financial services.
But calling this open banking might stretch the term too far. It’s more accurate to view Stitch as a transitional player—one bridging the gap between traditional banking and the future of open banking, but not quite embodying it just yet.
In the end, Stitch Money’s success highlights the urgent need for regulatory bodies in emerging markets to accelerate the development of open banking frameworks. Without these guardrails, fintechs will continue to innovate in fragmented, inconsistent ways, which could ultimately harm consumer trust and limit the transformative potential of open banking.
So, is Stitch Money open banking?
Not quite. But what it is doing is important, and in a way, it’s laying the groundwork for what open banking could eventually become in the regions it serves. The hope is that, with time, Stitch and others like it will evolve to embrace the full spectrum of open banking principles—transparency, scalability, and, most importantly, consumer control.
Until then, it’s fair to say Stitch Money is playing a vital, albeit incomplete, role in the open banking narrative.
