Regulation-Led vs. Market-Led Open Banking: Can the US Learn from European Implementation Failures?

Open banking can be introduced through binding regulation, as in the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK), or allowed to emerge through market arrangements, as in the United States (US). This study asks what the US, whose federal data-access rule under section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act was finalised in 2024 but stayed in 2025, can learn from European implementation. A mixed-methods comparative institutional analysis combines document analysis of EU, UK and US regulatory texts, a structured literature synthesis, and descriptive indicators from World Bank databases, FDIC Call Reports and a Bloomberg panel of 58 European banks (2012–2025), of which 42 enter the bank-level medians. The EU’s shortcomings were mainly shortcomings of implementation design rather than of the mandate itself: fragmented interface standards, uneven interface quality, no compensation for data holders, decentralised supervision, premature sequencing and narrow scope. The UK’s centrally coordinated variant delivered a single standard, a completed roadmap and well-documented usage growth. Descriptive indicators show no visible break in bank cost-to-income ratios around 2018 in either regime. The US can avoid European pitfalls by pairing a legal access right with one recognised standard, performance metrics, a coordinating body, transparent pricing and consumer permission dashboards. Supplementary data (World Bank, FDIC, article tables) are included; licensed Bloomberg data are not redistributed.