What is Open Banking?

It’s the full automation of the payment journey from

Tenant – Agent – Landlord

From Client Account to Landlord’s Bank Account.

No need to look at your bank again.

And its all live! No over night batches!

How does it work?

You simply connect your client account to agentOS. Its that simple.

The system reconciles, takes fees and pays the Landlord.

How I get it?

Open banking is available to clients of agentOS.

LAT 11/3/2020

Breakthrough for agents as Open Banking set to speed and improve payments.

Letting agents will for the first time be able to use Open Banking to process payments more efficiently, following a decision by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The FCA has approved industry software supplier agentOS to offer Open Banking, which provides a secure way for businesses and consumers to allow software providers access to their financial information.

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March 2020

agentOS receives FCA approval to offer Open Banking to letting agents

Leading property software supplier agentOS is the first industry CRM to receive approval from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to offer an Open Banking solution to letting agents.

Open Banking provides a secure way for businesses and consumers to allow software providers access to their financial information. Its application in the private rented sector (PRS) will allow letting agents to process payments more efficiently.

Through Open Banking, agentOS will allow agents to automate payments and improve the tenant to agent to landlord payment journey.

Helping agents to avoid late night and early morning work

agentOS says one of the main benefits of its new Open Banking initiative will be to help agents reduce the amount of out of hours payment work they are having to do.

Many letting agency owners are in a catch-22 because of the growth of the PRS. As they take on more properties, they have to spend more time dealing with rent payments and contractors’ bills.

“We see what times of day agents are doing additional payment administration work. They are either getting up really early or, if the day gets away from them, they are logging in at 10pm or 11pm to manually manage payments,” says Glyn Trott, managing director of agentOS.

“This is particularly the case for owners of independent agencies who like to keep in control of finances, but we’ve also seen the founders of larger agencies – or someone senior who is highly trusted – doing the same.”

He says the automation Open Banking allows means agents will no longer have to manually manage payments, while the overall process is significantly faster.

“Not only will this save time, but agents can pay their landlords quicker, while receiving their fees faster and improving cash flow,” adds Trott.

Open Banking allows agents to utilise online banking effectively

According to agentOS, agents who use its Open Banking solution will benefit from a more seamless online banking solution.

“Most agents currently use BACS to process payments. However, it is quite an old and slow system which can take up to three days to process a payment if it’s made to another bank,” Trott explains.

“Online banking is quicker but requires agents to process payments manually every day. Open Banking is changing the landscape and allows agents to benefit from automated online banking, which is vastly superior to BACS.”

“Open Banking is live – it’s true innovation and a great challenger to the banking status quo,” he adds.

Is this the future of automation in the lettings sector?

In a growing sector where agents’ time is increasingly stretched, innovations like Open Banking can help them to get back to doing what they do best: meeting new landlords and growing their businesses.

“There has been a lot of talk about automation in PropTech. Open Banking, however, truly improves the rental payment journey with effective automation,” Trott says.

“Our approach to Open Banking is aiming to reinvigorate the agent who used to be an excited young negotiator, has since become a branch manager or business owner, and is now bogged down by client accounting.”

“This is not just about administration; Open Banking does the payments for the agent. It helps agents to identify who money belongs to and when it’s due. It connects the start and end of the process and automation means you no longer need people to process the payments,” he explains.

Trott says that while many mortgage companies already use Open Banking and it has been trialled by some tenant referencing firms, agentOS is at the forefront when it comes to agency software suppliers embracing this new wave of financial technology.

“The benefits of Open Banking are likely to be popular with landlords while the concept of a more streamlined financial process will certainly appeal to millennial consumers. That’s why we believe there will be a sharp increase in the number of agents adopting Open Banking solutions in the coming years,” adds Trott.

“Therefore, we want to help agents improve their knowledge of Open Banking and understand how it can transform the financial structure of their business,” he concludes.