New white paper outlines a policy roadmap for enabling secure, consumer-centric agentic fintech across the United States and Canada
Contact: Laine Williams, (202) 897-4757, lwilliams@allonadvocacy.com
Washington, DC, July 22, 2026 – The Financial Data and Technology Association (“FDATA”), a trade association representing more than two dozen financial technology companies and customer-permissioned data access platforms, today released a white paper, “Access to Action: Agentic Fintech & Write Access – Considerations for the Appropriate Governance of Agentic Tools and Write Access in the United States and Canada,” providing policymakers with a framework for governing agentic and AI-powered fintech tools.
As AI becomes increasingly integrated into financial services, and as policymakers in both Canada and the United States consider regulatory frameworks for evolving financial technologies, the paper examines how “agentic fintech”—applications capable of acting on behalf of consumers and small businesses—can safely expand beyond today’s read-only data access models to enable customer-authorized actions, instructions, and payments. Rather than proposing an entirely new regulatory regime, the paper demonstrates how existing legal and regulatory frameworks governing data access, payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and consumer protection can be adapted to support innovation while maintaining appropriate safeguards.
Developed in collaboration with FDATA’s Write Access Working Group (WAWG), the paper introduces a practical framework built around three distinct categories of agentic activity—Read, Instruct, and Transact—and maps each to existing regulatory frameworks focused on data protection, liability, and alignment of interests. It also draws on international experience from jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, and Brazil to inform policy discussions currently underway in the United States and Canada.
“Open finance has always been about giving consumers and small business owners meaningful control over their financial lives,” said Steve Boms, Executive Director of FDATA. “As AI evolves from simply analyzing data to carrying out customer-authorized actions, policymakers have an opportunity to build on the strong foundations already in place. This paper demonstrates that we do not need to reinvent financial regulation for the age of agentic fintech. By applying existing principles around consumer protection, payments, and data governance in a proportionate and technology-neutral way, we can support innovation while maintaining the trust, choice, and safeguards consumers expect.”
The white paper concludes with a series of policy recommendations designed to support responsible innovation while preserving consumer trust. Among them are recommendations to strengthen consumer data rights, enable standing authorizations for appropriately scoped agent-initiated transactions, clarify liability for write-access activities, and apply existing duties of loyalty, care, and disclosure proportionate to the level of discretion exercised by AI-powered agents.
The report reflects the collaborative work of FDATA’s WAWG, which brings together leading experts from across the open finance ecosystem to examine the policy, technical, and governance considerations associated with emerging write-access capabilities.
The working group includes representatives from:
- FDATA
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MX
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Trustly
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Sumsub
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EQ Bank
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Pontera
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Sunset Park Advisory
The release comes as policymakers in both the United States and Canada continue advancing open finance frameworks and begin considering how emerging AI-enabled financial services should operate within existing consumer protection, payments, and data governance regimes.
The full white paper is available here.
About FDATA
The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) is a global trade association representing financial technology companies that provide consumer- and business-permissioned financial data access. FDATA advocates for policies that promote open finance, consumer choice, competition, innovation, and secure data portability across financial services.
