A group of Norwegian banks are preparing to merge their payments systems in an effort to protect themselves from an expected challenge from Silicon Valley, Finextra reports. And further, according to Reuters, DNB, banking group Eika, Sparebank 1 Gruppen and others have agreed to merge the Vipps, BankAxept and BankID payment systems, aiming to have a new venture up and running by next August. The three bank-owned systems are focused on different payments areas: Vipps is a mobile payments app; BankAxept is the country's debit card service; and BankID is an online authentication platform. From next year, firms from outside of the industry will be permitted to facilitate payments, opening up the possibility of challenge from local tech firms as well as Apple, Google and Facebook. The UK's Open Banking project is being expanded to embrace all payment account types covered by PSD2, reports Finextra. This group includes credit cards, prepaid cards and e-wallets. In a bid to boost competition and innovation, last year the Competition and Markets Authority told the nine largest current account providers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland to set up a body to build common API standards to let customers share their financial data with non-bank providers. With the core set of requirements coming into force in January, the CMA and UK Treasury is already looking ahead to expanding the project for their bank customers using credit cards. Property market experts in the UK are warning that the UK Budget announcement that stamp duty will be cut for first-home buyers will do little to help, reports the FT. The decision to abolish stamp duty for first home-buyers on properties valued at up to £300,000 will take effect immediately. Up until now, stamp duty was not payable on properties worth less than £125,000 but rose steeply over that threshold. In addition, first-home buyers buying a property worth up to £500,000 will now only pay stamp duty over the £300,000 threshold. The measures may save first-home buyers up to £5000, but one commentator described it as "a drop in the ocean of the affordability challenge" while others warn it could result in a jump in house prices if demand increases. As part of the Budget, the UK Chancellor has put a March 2019 deadline on the sale of its £24 billion stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland, despite sitting on a loss that currently stands at more than £26 billion, reports the FT. Philip Hammond has previously said he would not beginning selling the government's 71 per cent stake in RBS until it had settled with US authorities over mis-selling of mortgage securities. The fine for that is expected to be as high as US$12 billion.