Originally posted on Bloomberg

• Greater efficiency could lift GDP in EU, U.K. and U.S. by 1.5%
• Benefits may be even bigger in developing countries like India

The lack of thorough and accessible financial data is holding back economies across the world, and breaking down barriers in sharing that information could boost gross domestic product by as much as 1.5% in the European Union, U.K. and U.S., according to McKinsey Global Institute.

Consumers, businesses and banks would all stand to benefit from an “open-data ecosystem,” a centralized, secure infrastructure that’s designed to improve the breadth of shared financial information, McKinsey researchers said in a report released Thursday. The goal would be to expand the amount of exchanged data and standardize how it’s passed around.