An evidence worksheet for your team
What do you need
to decide next?
Turn an Open Finance proposition into clear questions, evidence, owners and next steps. Work through eight areas with the people who will deliver it.
Bring to your next meeting
A decision.
The evidence behind it.
An owner for the gaps.
Start with one proposition. Record what you know, what is still uncertain and the next action your team can take.
Before you begin
Name the decision.
Keep the scope small enough to resolve. For example: “Can we test a multi-bank cash-flow view with a small group of SME customers?”
Eight areas to work through
Make the unknowns useful.
Start with the one or two areas most likely to change your decision. “Evidence recorded” means you have a source to discuss; it does not mean the requirement has been satisfied.
A first entry, using the fictional clinic
Area: Proposition & customer benefit · State: Investigating
Evidence held: The synthetic persona and combined-ledger demo explain the idea. Customer benefit has not been validated.
Unknown: Would this view help the practice manager make a specific cash decision?
Next action: Test the proposed view in customer interviews. Assign a product owner and review date.
Proposition & customer benefit
Start with the problem you want to solve.
What would become better for the customer or partner?
Describe the current task, the proposed improvement and why Open Finance helps. A multi-bank cash-flow view might reduce manual reconciliation; the benefit still needs testing with customers.
Evidence to collect
Customer interviews, a journey or process map, the assumptions behind your proposition and a clear test of whether it helps.
Role & participation requirements
Clarify the role your organisation intends to take.
Which activities will you perform, and what requirements apply?
Distinguish providing data or services, accessing them, and supporting another participant. The participation questions for a Licensed Financial Institution (LFI), a Third-Party Provider (TPP) and a technology provider can differ.
Evidence to collect
A role and activity map; the applicable official participation guidance and requirements, with versions and dates; unresolved questions for the relevant authority or operator.
API capabilities & data quality
Map the data and capabilities your proposition depends on.
Can the required data and functions support your intended use?
List the capabilities, versions and fields you need. Test assumptions about coverage, freshness, completeness and reconciliation rather than inferring them from a directory entry.
Evidence to collect
Selected specifications and versions; dated directory declarations; partner confirmation; representative test results and documented gaps. Keep synthetic results separate from live-data evidence.
Customer journey, authentication & consent
Follow permission through the whole experience.
What will the customer understand, authorise and be able to change?
For journeys that require customer permission, consider account selection, authentication, the purpose and duration of access, withdrawal and failure. Identify the applicable flow rather than assuming all APIs use the same one.
Evidence to collect
A journey diagram, proposed customer language, applicable authoritative guidance and test results for success, refusal, expiry, withdrawal and recovery.
Partners & external dependencies
Separate declared availability from a confirmed dependency.
Who must do what for your proposition to work?
Map participants, vendors and internal teams. A public registration or published capability can help you investigate a partner; it does not establish a working service relationship or an agreed delivery date.
Evidence to collect
Dependency owners, confirmed scope and environments, relevant agreements, testing arrangements and explicit assumptions about access, support and timing.
Security, risk & control evidence
Give each important control a source and an owner.
What evidence supports the way you protect customers and their information?
Bring the relevant security, privacy and risk owners into the decision. Consider the data lifecycle, access boundaries, retention, incident handling and the assurance required for your intended role and scope.
Evidence to collect
A data-flow map, applicable requirements, control owners, threat and risk reviews, assurance and test evidence, plus accepted or unresolved risks.
Operations, support & change
Plan for the days when things change or fail.
Who owns service failures, customer support and changes?
Describe the responsibilities between your organisation and its partners. Include failed or delayed requests, stale data, customer questions, incidents and changes to specifications or partner services.
Evidence to collect
Operating responsibilities, escalation routes, monitoring and reconciliation plans, incident exercises, change processes and customer-support guidance.
Economics, sequencing & delivery evidence
Decide the smallest useful next step.
What would justify moving to the next stage?
Make the commercial and delivery assumptions explicit. Separate exploration, a controlled test and a launch decision. Define the evidence needed at each stage, including any applicable approvals.
Evidence to collect
Costs and assumptions, expected benefit, dependency sequence, test criteria, relevant control and approval evidence, and the people accountable for the next decision.
Verify the evidence
Use the right source for the question.
- CBUAE Open Finance Framework — the primary regulatory source; verify the provisions applicable to your role.
- Official Open Finance documentation — participation, standards, testing and certification references.
- Observatory methodology — what directory observations establish, and what remains unknown.
- Synthetic SME worked example — an illustration for discussion, without evidence of live service availability.
Discuss your next step
Need another perspective?
Take your unanswered questions to the product, risk, legal and delivery owners in your team. If you need specialist support, compare relevant experience, scope, fees and conflicts of interest. Use this worksheet to describe the evidence and decisions you need help with.
AI-assisted drafting and source review by Codex, . Editorial contact: @michartmann .