March 2 2022, Washington, DC – Today, the Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) of North America submitted a comment letter to the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on its draft report “Cybersecurity Considerations for Open Banking Technology and Emerging Standards.”
The letter expressed appreciation for the Institute’s research in this important policy space, but respectfully offered that this report, published in January, would significantly benefit from expanded input from market and government stakeholders to appropriately frame the current open banking environment in the United States as well as to accurately reflect the significant regulatory attention that has already been given to this space.
The letter states that “as one of the earliest federal government research publications on open banking, it is crucial that this report accurately define and describe all the elements of open banking that are relevant to policymakers. Unfortunately, in many cases we believe that NISTIR 8389 falls short. From the onset, the definition and framing of open banking is too narrow, and critical distinctions between customer-permissioned data access – the foundation of open banking – and non-permissioned data mining, as well as the important differences between propriety and non-proprietary data, are insufficiently distinguished. Use cases are inaccurately described, and the full impact of Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on the development of open banking in the United States could be better articulated.”
FDATA NA is concerned that certain errors and omissions in this paper could misinform both the public and key policymakers as they develop open banking regulations. In the absence of this meaningful stakeholder engagement, we are concerned that this draft paper also does not fully appreciate the market and regulatory environment in which open banking use cases are currently delivered to consumers and small businesses in the United States today and will be in the future. Our letter therefore urged NIST to consider input from key stakeholders and republish a revised version of this report.
ABOUT FDATA NORTH AMERICA
FDATA was heavily involved in the UK Open Banking Working Group in 2015. In 2016, the working group’s output was published by Her Majesty’s Treasury as the Open Banking Standard. FDATA North America was founded in early 2018. Its members collectively provide tens of millions of consumers in Canada, the United States, and Mexico with aggregation-based tools to better manage their finances.
Members include air (Alliance for Innovative Regulation), APImetrics, Basis Theory, Betterment, BillGo, Codat, Direct ID, Envestnet Yodlee, Equitable Bank, Experian, Finansystech, Fiserv, Flinks, Interac, Intuit, Inverite, Kabbage, Mogo, Morningstsar, M Science, MX, Petal, Plaid, Questrade, Rocket Mortgage, SaltEdge, Trustly, ValidiFI, Vaultree, VoPay, Wealthica, Xero, and others.