The ongoing tug of war between banks and financial technology startups over access to customer data lies at the centre of industry discussions about the forthcoming open banking regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). A key point of contention is whether banks should be able to charge fees for the sharing of data and how much control they should wield over its dissemination.
In accordance with Section 1033 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB’s open banking proposal would facilitate the straightforward sharing of bank and credit card account data with third-party fintech applications such as Wealthfront or Venmo. However, these fintech firms would be required to maintain baseline data-security protocols and banks would not be permitted to charge fees for providing access to the data in question.
Banks have argued that they should have the option to impose certain constraints over data access, marking a clear divergence of opinion within the industry. More information on the proposal can be found in the full article → Bloomberg Law.