UK researchers will soon be able to tap into real-time bank data on millions of households and businesses—if a new national service can overcome the hurdles of privacy, regulation, and industry reluctance. Financial data is remarkably scarce in UK research infrastructure. Surveys capture only snapshots, often inaccurate or outdated, leaving researchers blind to how people and businesses actually manage money day-to-day. Meanwhile, banks and fintech firms hold high-quality, near-real-time records of spending, saving, and cashflow—but sharing that data with academics is expensive, legally complex, and unsupported by any coordinating body. The FINDS project, led by the University of Edinburgh and Smart Data Foundry, aims to build a trusted national service that securely links researchers with private-sector financial data. If successful, the service would let economists, climate scientists, and policymakers track the effects of interest rate rises, extreme weather, or Net Zero policies as they unfold—not months later. Researchers could see, for example, how a heatwave drains small business cashflows or whether a cost-of-living payment actually reaches the households that need it. The result would be faster, more targeted policy and better allocation of public money.
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Money, despite being the central medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value in society, is virtually absent from many of the new data infrastructures being developed by UK research bodies to serve research communities over the coming decades. Even in surveys or censuses, the difficulty of collecting financial information at snapshots in time has meant that financial data is often limited, sometimes inaccurate, and rarely timely. Yet this data has enormous potential to support research across a variety of scales; for example, the impact of macroeconomic shocks on household finances, the effects of extreme weather on small-scale enterprise cashflows, the affordability of the transition to Net Zero, or the way we take from or give to our own futures. In comparison with other sectors, the financial industry—in part due to stringent regulation and constant innovation—typically holds high-quality and timely data, making it near research-ready1. However, data sharing between the private sector and academia is difficult, resource-intensive, and is not supported by any coordinating or supporting agency. This is true despite the cross-sector efforts of the open finance and open data movements highlighting clear demand for new research and innovation over the past decade2. At the same time, many researchers are often unaware of the opportunities that this type of data provides. The University of Edinburgh (UoE), working through Smart Data Foundry (SDF) and EPCC (formerly the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre) has developed, over the past five years, a proven approach to gaining researcher access to financial data. Building on the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland City Region Deal, the Data-Driven Innovation Initiative, and UKRI Strength in Places Funding, we have created a service through which researchers can securely access financial data about both consumers and businesses and see their research through all the way to generating concrete impacts. SDF was founded to manage and provide this service with this UKRI funding, with a mission to open financial data for good. However, scaling this provision to a national service is an ambitious aim that will require significant additional investment. The aim of the Financial Data Service (FINDS) project is to make financial data readily available to researchers across the UK, turning it into a fundamental tool for research by the end of the decade. With SDR UK support, we would achieve this through: Growing our data relationships with leading industry data partners, Providing a high-quality, safe, secure, and user-centred service that optimises research-ready data, promoting a culture change towards novel data use in research, Collaborating closely with other data services, Innovating and safely normalising privacy-preserving data linkage, and Providing impactful research-driven insights that enhance policymaking in the UK, in a way that is demonstrably trusted by the public. The potential applications of this project are wide-ranging and enhanced by the near-real-time capabilities of this data source. Researchers can see the effects of macroeconomic shocks or targeted policy interventions practically as they happen, allowing for better policy and more efficient allocation of resources for societal betterment. As we continue to unlock these high-value financial data assets, we can continue to propel progress in key thematic areas of prosperity, health, and sustainability. Now is a pivotal time to invest in data to create a better future.
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