Why Open Banking Isn't Banking Yet

Sundararajan S. is the Co-Founder and CEO of i-exceed technology solutions, the company behind Appzillon, a leading digital banking platform used by 125+ banks in 25+ countries. With over 30 years of experience in banking technology, he has been at the forefront of driving global digital transformation. Prior to founding i-exceed, he played a pivotal role in developing Oracle’s flagship FLEXCUBE product. He is widely recognized for his leadership, innovation, and flawless execution in digital banking.

Open banking was supposed to be a growth story. For most institutions, it is still a compliance exercise. Banks built the APIs, checked the compliance boxes, and declared victory. Yet the promise remains unfulfilled: infrastructure that connects to nothing, generates no revenue, and sits idle while fintech competitors move ahead.

The numbers tell the story. Despite regulatory mandates across Europe, the UK, India, and parts of Asia, marketplace banking models have largely stalled. Banks understand the logic. They know the infrastructure they built for compliance could unlock partnerships, generate new revenue streams, and turn their customer base into a platform. Execution is where things break down.

"The gap is rarely one of intent," says Sundararajan S, co-founder and CEO of i-exceed technology solutions, a Bangalore-based firm whose Appzillon platform powers digital banking for over 125 institutions across 25 countries. "Banks understand the opportunity. Where execution slows down is in the mechanics: onboarding a new partner, configuring a proposition, getting a product to market without a multi-year build cycle."

The marketplace that never materialized

Marketplace banking has been part of strategy conversations for nearly a decade. The vision was clear: banks would become platforms, customers would access insurance, investments, and third-party services without leaving their banking app, and revenue would flow from partnerships rather than just deposits and loans.

What lagged was execution. In most cases, the barrier is not strategic clarity. Institutions largely understand what they are trying to build. Execution slows in the space between decision and deployment. Compliance reviews, technology integration, and procurement processes each serve a valid purpose. Collectively, however, they create timelines that marketplace models struggle to accommodate. By the time a partner integration goes live, the commercial context has often shifted.

There is also a structural challenge. While investment in customer-facing layers has been substantial, the underlying integration architecture has not kept pace. The result is a digital experience that resembles a marketplace but lacks the operational agility to function like one. The back end simply cannot support the speed, flexibility, or scale of partner onboarding that the model demands.

Sundararajan has been working on this problem since 2011, when he founded i-exceed after over two decades at i-flex Solutions, later acquired by Oracle, where he served as Senior Vice President of Global Customer Fulfilment for FLEXCUBE, Oracle's flagship banking product. The challenge he encountered was consistent: banks needed digital capabilities but could not execute transformation without disrupting operations.

Building the layer between legacy and digital

Appzillon was designed to solve that specific problem. Rather than replacing core banking systems, the platform works as an engagement layer that sits atop existing infrastructure, allowing banks to launch new products, connect with partners, and scale digital services without ripping out decades-old cores.

"The approach is additive, enabling institutions to demonstrate value early, learn from real outcomes, and scale transformation with greater confidence and control," Sundararajan explains. The platform has been recognised by Forrester, IBS Intelligence, and Celent for its approach to digital banking transformation.

Since its founding, i-exceed has built its client base across 25 countries, working with banks navigating different regulatory environments and market maturity levels. The company's focus has been on institutions that need to modernise engagement layers without disrupting core operations, particularly in markets where open banking frameworks are driving new partnership models.

India's infrastructure moment

India's open banking stack is maturing faster than most markets. UPI processes high transaction volumes and has become central to the country's digital payments ecosystem, generating behavioural data that can complement traditional credit bureau scores. The Account Aggregator framework adds another layer, allowing customers to share financial data across institutions with consent.

For banks, this creates new opportunities, particularly in lending. UPI transactions generate data that can support faster credit decisions for MSMEs and thin-file customers. The Account Aggregator framework can reduce turnaround times and enable more customer-centric products.

"The institutions making the most progress are those that can connect to these systems quickly and move from idea to launch without long internal cycles," Sundararajan notes. That is the kind of operational agility Appzillon is designed to support.

The legacy trap

Legacy modernisation is one of banking's most over-discussed, under-delivered promises. Many institutions recognise the need for change, yet remain anchored to legacy systems. The constraints are rarely just technical. Culture, capability, and leadership appetite for sustained transformation carry equal weight. Programs that attempt to change too much, too quickly, tend to find both dimensions more complex than anticipated.

Sundararajan's recommendation is incremental transformation. Rather than wholesale core replacement, begin at the customer engagement layer and deliver visible improvements early. "For most institutions, a more pragmatic path is one that runs alongside existing systems and progresses at a pace the organization can absorb," he says.

What comes next

The conversation around open banking often moves faster than the institutions it is meant to serve. Frameworks evolve, projections expand, and ambition is genuine. Yet the gap between what regulation enables and what banks are commercially ready to act on remains significant across most markets.

Achieving open banking readiness requires coordinated change across multiple layers: core infrastructure, API architecture, consent management, data governance, and partner onboarding. These are not capabilities that can be assembled quickly. Institutions making meaningful progress treat these as interconnected challenges rather than isolated workstreams.

"This is the space where i-exceed has long operated," Sundararajan says, "working closely with institutions to identify where friction truly lies and how it can be addressed in a way that is both practical and scalable."

The next phase of open banking will be defined less by regulation alone and more by how effectively institutions execute within their specific contexts. The infrastructure has been built. Whether banks can turn it into a commercial advantage is the question that remains open.