Carla Bonina

1 INTRODUCTION Governments in Latin America face high pressure to transform, with the challenge of balancing critical demands: to deliver better, more inclusive, and relevant public services for citizens and business, to become more transparent and responsive while reducing costs, increasing efficiency and reinventing their operations (ECLAC, 2021; OECD et al., 2020).

Introduction The open data movement launched a decade ago with a focus on transparency, good governance, and citizen participation. As other chapters in this collection have documented in detail, those critical uses of open data have remained paramount and are continuing to grow in importance at a time of fake news and increased secrecy. But the value of open data extends beyond transparency and accountability – open data is also an important resource for business and economic growth.

Digital technology and pervasive access to the internet have reshaped many industries, and banking is no exception: Hampden and Co is the latest in a short but growing list of digital-only banks built not of bricks and mortar, safes and strongboxes, but which instead operate entirely virtually in the realm of cloud computing. Fidor Bank in Germany implements web 2.0, e-commerce and gaming features together with mobile internet access to provide a seamless service.