FDATA North America July 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.

Know someone who’d like to receive these monthly updates? Send them here to sign up!

FDATA North America Monthly Newsletter for July 2022

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. Know someone who’d like to receive these monthly updates? Send them here to sign up

Monthly FDATA Member Spotlight: Codat

Codat is a fintech that provides a universal API for small business data, which powers integration of products built by other software providers and financial institutions. In this interview, Gabby Macsweeney, Head of Communications and Public Policy, discussed how universal APIs can simplify business processes and inform financial wellness:

FDATA NA News

FDATA Submits Comments to Canada’s OSFI on Draft Guideline B-10: Third Party Risk Management. We recently submitted a comment letter in response to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ (OSFI) public consultation on Draft Guideline B-10: Third Party Risk Management. The letter focused on the interplay between this consultation and the concurrent development of Canada’s open banking framework, particularly the importance of clearly distinguishing third-party providers from open banking providers that will be accredited under the new OB system. The letter also expressed appreciation for OSFI’s clarification that its draft guideline is not intended to impede the establishment of open banking, but stressed that this clarification alone does not satisfactorily address the need to ensure coordination of accreditation for open banking providers

FDATA Develops Draft Open Banking Privacy Principles. FDATA North America’s Privacy Working Group, a joint effort between representatives across FDATA’s 30+ members, has developed a draft set of privacy principles to guide the implementation of open banking in the United States 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. This work is particularly important now because House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) recently introduced a financial data privacy discussion draft, which proposes to modernize the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) to include data aggregators under the GLBA framework, and calls for consumers to have increased control over how their financial data is used, among other priorities. As policymakers in the United States 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 published a blog post entitled “How to implement KYC using data tokenization,” which walked through how data tokenization of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) helps eliminate risks, costs, and constraints stemming from Know Your Customer (KYC) programs. The post also explained the common risks, costs, and limits of KYC implementation.

Betterment published a blog post entitled “Banks, Fintech collaboration key to customer satisfaction,” which explained how the rapidly changing digital lending and payments space could leave less-innovative financial institutions behind. The blog post also suggested that increased partnerships between fintechs and banks could be a mutually beneficial solution to this challenge.

BillGO’s Chief Risk Officer Bryan Kanefield penned a post on the company’s blog describing his views on the delicate balance between risk management and innovation. Kanefield said, “[S]omeone may come up with a great new way to approach a product or change a process…..my role is to think about how it can be responsibly executed while ensuring compliance with existing laws or regulations.” The post also noted that in the past, some traditional FIs voiced concerns that smaller, less-regulated fintechs might be putting them at a disadvantage; but now many FIs now see the value in treating fintechs as collaborators rather than competitors.

Codat’s CEO and Co-Founder Pete Lord sat down for a video interview with PYMTS to discuss how a lack of connectivity impacts small business growth and productivity and what Codat is doing to change it. Lord described how the average SMB is using up to 100 different programs and tools to run and manage their business, and how this lack of connectivity between systems also prevents SMBs from accessing financing in a tight credit market, as telling a story with disheveled data doesn’t fill lenders with confidence.

DirectID announced a partnership with Shieldpay, a secure digital payments firm, to implement DirectID’s open banking-powered bank account verification into the Shieldpay payments engine. DirectID’s Connect widget and Shieldpay’s payment engine will allow customers to transfer funds online with digital escrow and trust services.

EQ Bank published a post on its Education Centre webpage explaining the basics of open banking, how it works, and how it can empower consumers make better banking decisions.

Envestnet Yodlee announced organizational changes to accelerate the growth of the Envestnet financial wellness ecosystem by streamlining its business into three business lines: Envestnet Solutions, Envestnet Data and Analytics, and Envestnet WealthTech.

Flinks held an event to kick off its “Flinks Egage” fireside chat series entitled “Redefining Intelligent Financial Services,” which featured a discussion between Flinks and Provenir on how intelligent financial services have evolved and where they’re going next.

Fiserv announced the rollout of its new Digital Mortgage Center, which enables digital mortgage application access from a desktop, laptop, or mobile device, builds on the existing capabilities of its Mortgage Director core lending ecosystem, and allows lenders to manage pipelines wherever they are. This new platform will ensure secure communication between borrower and lender, contains a borrower loan dashboard allowing borrowers to complete the mortgage process from within one system, and provides loan officers digital access to manage pipelines and take an application in person or over the phone from anywhere.

Hank Payments announced it has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Fair Fintech Inc. (Fair), a financial services company wealth building digital platform based in Houston, Texas. Under the strategic partnership, Hank and Fair will offer the Fair banking products to Hank consumers, including a 4% Wealth Building Account. Additionally, and as part of the agreement, Fair will expend significant amounts to fund various market development and general marketing efforts to accelerate customer adoption.

Interac hosted the Moneyconf Roundtables at the 2022 CollisionHQ tech conference. Attendees joined in conversation with Interac leaders including Izabela Nanushi on Central Bank Digital Currencies, Ireen Birungi on Cybersecurity, Rob Fodor on Data and AI, and Edwin Lam on the resurgence of QR.

MX’s Chief Product Officer Brett Allred joined the Fintech Café podcast to discuss what he sees as the beginning of the third era of finance: the API era. Allred also shares his background, discusses President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on the CFPB’s 1033 rulemaking and how MX is operating in the space.

Plaid published a blog post announcing the opening of its first Canadian office in Toronto, and a new data access agreement it has signed with the RBC, Canada’s largest bank. The agreement will bring about new secure, API-based financial access for more than 14 million RBC digital clients, who will have the ability to securely connect to the 6,000+ apps and services on Plaid’s data network.

Salt Edge published a blog post explaining how open banking can speed-up the bank customer onboarding process. According to the post, nearly 50% of customers abandon their attempt to sign up for new financial services since the process can take an average of 24 days. The post also explains how Salt Edge’s open banking solutions can help businesses gain access to 5,000+ financial institutions globally to provide customers with a unique, effortless, and safe onboarding experience.

Vopay published a blog post entitled “Transforming Pre-Authorized Debit: Capitalizing On Bank Account Payment Innovation,” which describes how Pre-Authorized debits (PADs) have long been a powerful tool for businesses and consumers, despite recent surges in digital wallets, account-to-account (A2A) payments and buy now, pay later (BNPL) services.

Trustly announced a new partnership with Gr4vy, a leading cloud-native payment orchestration platform (POP). Gr4vy’s online merchants will be able to add Trustly as a payment option, which will enable merchants to streamline and manage payment methods, services, and transactions all in one place.

Xero’s Chief Product Officer Anna Curzon appeared on the Small Business Podcast to discuss the distributed future of work, the benefits of open banking and the Xero platform, more opportunities to increase diversity and how it benefits the business and much more.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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