FDATA North America June 2022 Newsletter

by rebecca

Welcome to FDATA North America’s monthly newsletter! These regular dispatches will share developments from our organization and our 30+ member companies, all of which are promoting financial access and inclusion with open finance use cases. We also include a list of upcoming industry events, and coverage of any market developments that impact fintech innovators.

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FDATA and Paytechs of Canada Brief Canadian Members of Parliament on Results of Open Banking Survey. The two organizations presented the novel findings of a recent survey to elected members of the Canadian Parliament from all three major parties as a way to build momentum toward delivery of Canada’s Open Banking system. The survey, conducted by Pollara Insights, found that more than half of respondents felt stress when interacting with Canada’s financial services sector and believe they would benefit from increased competition and transparency, with women, young people, and new Canadians finding the existing system particularly difficult. The briefing event was co-sponsored by MPs Colin Deacon, Dan Albas, Daniel Blaikie, Julie Dzerowicz and Gabriel Ste-Marie, and served as an opportunity to discuss how a made-in-Canada model for open banking and the modernization of payments can drive inclusion, innovation, establish responsible oversight and better meet the needs of consumers.

FDATA Develops Draft Open Banking Privacy Principles. FDATA North America’s Privacy Working Group, a joint effort between representatives across FDATA’s 30+ membership, has developed a draft set of privacy principles to guide the implementation of open banking in the US and Canada. These principles include detailed definitions of data types, basic requirements for transparency and liability, governance and oversight requirements, and technology standards for ensuring the privacy of consumer data in an open banking environment. As policymakers in the U.S. and Canada contemplate the data privacy safeguards for consumers and small businesses in both countries’ open banking frameworks, FDATA NA stands ready to provide its perspective on customer protection.

Member News & Activity

Basis Theory’s Colin Luce published a blog entitled: Why Data Security is a Developer Service Problem, which explains why securing, suing, and managing sensitive data is so difficult, and how Basis Theory’s offerings can simplify this complex management.

Betterment CEO Sarah Levy joined Fintech Explained for a wide-ranging Q&A on Betterment’s mission of opening up investment opportunities for all and the future of the financial technology industry.

BillGO published a new blog post explaining how modern bill pay technology can help reduce the so-called “junk fees” that the CFPB recently announced it is looking into, by providing consumers with the tools they need to help them stay current on their financial obligations. The blog includes a quote by CEO Dan Holt from BillGO’s new eBook: “when you consider consumer anxieties around credit scores and late fees, it’s clear that offering real-time payment tools is imperative if FIs hope to [meet] consumer needs.“

Codat published a blog post entitled “Bank feeds and accounting integrations: Why corporate card users need both to automate bookkeeping” which explains how data from bank feeds and reconciliation can help SMBs simplify expense management and automate their bookkeeping.

DirectID was nominated as finalist in the 2022 Open Banking Expo Awards for the Best Use of Open Banking by a Non-Financial Services Company.

Envestnet Yodlee published a case study of how its client 1Bill authenticated and streamlined its bill management and easily got its consumers to link their bank accounts using Envestnet Yodlee’s data aggregation platform.

Flinks has been selected as a finalist for the 2022 Open Banking Expo Awards Best Open Banking Partnership—consumer category.

Fiserv President of Digital Payments and Data Aggregation Matthew Wilcox joined Jim Marous in the Financial Brand podcast to discuss how and if traditional banks can keep up with the rapid transformation of the payments system.

Interac sponsored “The Future of Money” event hosted by The Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, which featured Chief Commercial Officer William Keliehor and Chief Innovation Labs & New Ventures Officer, Debbie Gamble who spoke about open banking and digital currencies.

Kabbage co-founder Kathryn Petralia joined Tearsheet in a conversation about the unique financial needs of small businesses and what banks can do to address them. She explained how the Kabbage platform was built around automation and connection to customer-permissioned third-party data sources in order to help customers understand how their businesses are performing.

MX’s Jane Barratt joined an episode of “Banking Transformed” with Jim Marous to share how data and insight can transform banking into emotional relationships that can impact people, organizations, and communities. Jane also penned an op-ed in American Banker advocating for an open banking system in the US and explaining that “data permissioning brings choice….choice for the customer to make informed decisions based on data they are choosing to share between their financial institutions and preferred fintechs.”

Plaid’s John Pitts participated in an industry panel hosted by Economist Impact Events entitled “Bank or pay: digital competition in the financial ecosystem” discussing what factors should be considered when banks buy or collaborate with fintechs.

Salt Edge announced the launch of an exclusive report: “Top 5 use cases for B2B companies powered by open banking” which identified and highlighted 5 major business sectors that have embraced open banking technology to improve their offerings, and  analyzed the traditional issues for every use case and how open banking can help to overcome them.

Vopay, a leading provider of integrated payment technology announced a strategic partnership with TurnKey Lender to deliver an AI-powered lending automation platform used by traditional, alternative, and embedded lenders in 50+ countries. This integration with VoPay will allow for quick and efficient automated loan disbursements and installment collections, expanding the capabilities of lenders to meet customer payment preferences.

Xero announced two new partnerships: a new integration with Paystack which allows its users to add a “Pay with Paystack” button to Xero invoices, and with Stripe, a leading financial infrastructure platform, to create a seamless, integrated experience through the Xero Stripe App, which allows small businesses who are using Stripe with Xero to easily compare records, data and information.

Monthly FDATA Member Spotlight: Morningstar ByAllAccounts

This month’s FDATA Member Spotlight features Katy Gibson, Head of Product for Morningstar ByAllAccounts, who explains how access to customer-permissioned data is critical for their customers in the investment and wealth-management sectors.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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