Australia needs to wrest control of customer transaction data from the major big banks if it is to become truly innovative in financial services. Or so the argument goes from Tyro - Australia's newest bank - in its submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Data Availability and Use. Tyro has specifically taken aim at what it called "the solidified and persistent paradigms of past thinking." Among the points that Tyro wanted to make clear was its oft-repeated argument that "new entrants and innovators do not inject on balance risk but rather de-risk the systems and markets by delivering transparency and efficiency through automation, data and algorithm." Tyro co-founder Andrew Rothwell warned that the UK and the EU were well-advanced with their open data and open API movement, with Australia lagging behind. "If Australia is late in delivering open data and open API reforms in this country, the fintech revolution will take place elsewhere," Rothwell said. "Fintech investment around the world reached an estimated US$20 billion in 2015, a jump of about seven-fold in only three years. "Customers are currently being locked out of financial services products and solutions such as alternative lenders or comparison, advisory, financial management and payment services that are designed specifically to meet their needs by innovators who can deliver," Rothwell said. The Tyro submission echoes these views, noting how the Comprehensive Credit Reporting changes, introduced in March 2014 and bringing Australia in line with the majority of the developed world, have failed to deliver the sought-after public interest outcomes. Tyro puts the blame squarely onto "highly concentrated oligopolistic and duopolistic markets' voluntary arrangements".  "By refusing to allow customers to make their data and accounts available to regulated third parties, banks will continue to control the snail's pace of innovation in Australia - to the detriment of the Australian consumer," Rothwell said. The Tyro submission was that if banks offered open access to data and external APIs, the banks themselves would also benefit because it would enable them to become more of a 'platform' for other services - a point amplified by Rothwell in a later commentary published yesterday. "Once fintech innovators have been granted permission to analyse, integrate and share data as consumers see fit, they will unleash a vast wave of new products that will give consumers more choice, while increasing the value of their existing products," Rothwell said.