Beyond Compliance: How Customer Owned Banks Can Turn CDR into a Growth Engine

At COBA 2025, Biza’s COO Jessica Booth, challenged financial institutions to rethink their approach to the Consumer Data Right (CDR). Rather than viewing it as a regulatory checkbox, Jessica urged the industry to recognise CDR as a transformative force, one that can reshape customer relationships, enable smarter innovation, and deliver tangible commercial outcomes. His message was clear: the banks and credit unions that go beyond compliance will be the ones that turn data-sharing obligations into strategic advantage.

The numbers alone are striking. The Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA) estimates its members have invested more than $100 million to achieve CDR compliance, while the Australian Banking Association (ABA) places total industry spend at $1.5 billion. This infrastructure is worth far more than its regulatory origins and, as Jessica noted, it’s time to leverage it for growth, innovation, and superior customer experiences.

Every compliant institution has already built something powerful: accurate, mapped consumer data; secure connections to third-party systems; and improved governance frameworks. Those assets can now be used to go well beyond compliance.

For Customer Owned Banks that pride themselves on member service and trust, CDR creates the foundation for a new kind of engagement, one built on secure, transparent, and value-adding data sharing.

Before the CDR, customers were already sharing financial data — but often through fragmented systems and insecure channels. What’s changed isn’t just regulation, but rigour. CDR introduces enterprise-grade security, standardised reliability, and regulatory trust, a foundation purpose-built for safe, consent-driven data exchange. The question now isn’t whether CDR works, but how far it can take us.

This same infrastructure can streamline internal integrations, replace costly proprietary APIs, and deliver new experiences that strengthen member relationships.

As Jessica outlined, there are practical ways to extract value from the CDR today:

• Product Development: Use consumer-permissioned data to design products that reflect real usage patterns, not assumptions.
• Consumer Analytics: Identify where customers connect their data and uncover unmet needs or cross-sell opportunities.
• Infrastructure Leverage: Apply your existing CDR connections to business banking customers who need live accounting feeds — no custom integrations required.

Biza’s Holder as a Service (HaaS) solution enables this form of operational uplift, allowing banks to connect securely with leading accounting platforms, eliminating redundant APIs, and delivering seamless digital experiences.

Furthermore, with the Data Standards Advisory Committee now governing both CDR and Digital ID, it signals a new era of convergence, where data sharing, identity verification, and payment initiation are no longer separate functions but parts of an integrated digital ecosystem

As a practical example, a customer’s rental application could verify identity, address, and income automatically through trusted CDR and Digital ID data, and even authorise a deposit via consent-based payments. It’s a future that’s secure, streamlined, and already within reach.

For Customer Owned Banks, the foundations have already been laid. The CDR has created a robust framework for secure, consent-based data exchange, one that can now fuel smarter services, deeper customer relationships, and entirely new digital business models. Those who move first to reimagine their CDR infrastructure as a growth platform, not a cost centre, will define the next era of trust, transparency, and innovation in Australian banking.

Reach out to Biza about how we can help you transform CDR infrastructure into a lasting advantage for your business.