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FDATA North America September Newsletter

FDATA News

FDATA North America Submits Comments to Canada’s Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) Pre-2024 Budget Consultations. Our submission stressed that Canada needs to remain diligent in its pursuit of an open banking framework, that is must recognize that other countries are rapidly implementing their own open banking regimes, and remain keenly aware that every day that passes without open banking development risks leaving Canadians further behind their international counterparts and competitors. Our letter also expressed disappointment with the lack of progress on the open banking file, and called on the government to include language in Budget 2024 to rapidly implement the recommendations that Open Banking Lead Abraham Tachjian will provide in his forthcoming final report. Our submission also called for the government to outline its approach to open finance, the next logical step after open banking, and amend the Canadian Payments Act to enable Payments Canada to expand its membership to include federally regulated payment service providers, providing access to its forthcoming real-time payment system.

Member News & Activity

APImetrics published a new blog post entitled: “Why You Need to Think of APIs as Products” which demonstrates how a product-centric approach to API development means implementing security and privacy aspects right from the design phase through well after deployment.

Codat published a new blog post entitled: “Why big banks are finally making moves in business banking” which explained how small business borrowers can increase their access to credit by connecting and permissioning their deposit account data to SMB lenders.

Envestnet Data and Analytics hosted a webinar entitled” Open Banking Around the World” which outlined the evolution of open banking and open finance in several countries across the globe. It also featured discussion of the different paths countries have taken toward open banking accreditation, and described the use cases – like lending, payment initiation, personal finance, and more – that have been successful in each region.

Fiserv was recently recognized by CNBC in the Digital Payments Category of its “World Top Fintech Companies” list for the depth and breadth of capabilities it provides merchants and financial institutions, including solutions that enable digital commerce, digital money transfers, and mobile payments.

GoCardless has announced it is renewing its strategic partnership with fellow FDATA North America member Xero, the global small business platform, for another five years. The agreement builds on a long-term relationship which started in 2016, focused on helping small businesses get paid faster. For GoCardless this also represents a doubling down in the accountancy space, a key sector for the fintech as it executes on its ambitious growth plans.

Method was named a finalist in the PayTech Start-up of the Year category at the PayTech Awards USA 2023. Additionally, their founding software engineer Mustafa Ali spoke at Fintech Devcon on the importance of idempotency in building resilient, dependable APIs, and why adopting an idempotent-first mindset is vital for API-first companies.

MX published a new blog post and whitepaper entitled: “How Open Finance Improves Security,” which explain how consumer-permissioned data access leads to more consumer control and awareness of their financial data, as well as allowing for modern data security methods, particularly account access without the use of usernames and passwords.

Plaid’s Global Head of Policy John Pitts joined the “Breaking Banks” show along with Jonah Crane, partner at Klaros Group, and Dara Tarkowsi, partner at Actuate Law, to discuss open finance, the recent Interagency Guidance on Third Party Due Diligence from U.S. regulators, and how fintechs that are third-party bank partners must understand the importance of this guidance and prepare themselves for more interaction with regulators in the future.

Trustly’s Director of Regulatory and Public Affairs, Matt Janiga, joined Harold Levey at Pymnts to discuss the CFPB ‘s proposed rules and standards coming in October and the landscape of Open Banking regulation in the US. Matt put this latest regulatory work in context by explaining how laws designed to protect consumer information have been on the books for decades, and how the spirit of those laws is tied to a basic principle: If companies are sharing your data — whether it’s with another company or even the government — you should have some right to know about it and also to know what information the company has about you.

Vaultree’s CEO and founder Hamed Arbabi penned an article for the Forbes Technology Council entitled: “How To Better Support Gig Workers Through Payment Modernization,” which how payment modernization, particularly on payroll systems, is critical for providing gig workers the financial services needed to meet their work circumstances.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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FDATA North America Submits Comments to Canada’s Standing Committee on Finance Pre-2024 Budget Consultations

August 3, 2023, Washington, DC – The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) of North America submitted comments to Canada’s Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) as part of its pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2024 budget. Our submission stressed that Canada needs to remain diligent in its pursuit of an open banking framework which will provide Canadians much needed relief in banking fees and other expenses, that Canada must recognize that other countries are rapidly implementing their own open banking regimes, and remain keenly aware that every day that passes without open banking development risks leaving Canadians further behind their international counterparts and competitors.

Our letter also expressed disappointment with the lack of progress on the open banking file, and called on the government to:

  • Include language in Budget 2024 to implement the recommendations that Open Banking Lead Abraham Tachjian will provide in his forthcoming final report and rapidly implement Canada’s open banking system, including funding for the development of a neutral, transparent, and nimble governance function;
  • Include language in Budget 2024 outlining the government’s approach to open finance, the next logical step after open banking, and the framework needed to truly unlock market innovation and competition to benefit Canadian consumers and businesses; and
  • Amend the Canadian Payments Act to enable Payments Canada to expand its membership to include federally regulated payment service providers, providing access to its forthcoming real-time payment system.

In the submission, we also asserted that any open banking governance entity in Canada must be neutral (i.e. not controlled by any particular stakeholder(s) with commercial interests in the ecosystem), transparent (i.e. it invites and considers stakeholder input and subjects its decisions to an open, publicly visible process), and nimble (i.e. capable of making binding decisions relatively quickly and without undue bureaucracy), with all stakeholders in the open banking system agreeing to comply with the decisions and determinations made by the open banking governance entity as a condition of being active in the market.

A full copy of the submission is available here.

 

 

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FDATA North America August Newsletter

Member News & Activity

Basis Theory CEO and Co-Founder Colin Luce, wrote a guest post for Forbes outlining the four most important steps that fintech startups should be taking to secure their payment systems and unlock the value of their data. Basis Theory has also launched an Artificial Intelligence powered “Compliance Genie” in partnership with kapa.ai which can provide instant access to payments expertise and quickly sift through card network rules and get instant answers to regulatory questions.

Codat published a new blog post entitled “Can you really trust your customers’ accounting data?” which detailed how accounting data is more reliable than filed accounts and tax returns when it comes to evaluating a business’s creditworthiness. The post explains that many businesses update their accounting records much more regularly than their tax information, which can give a more accurate and up-to-date picture of a borrower’s creditworthiness at the time of application.

Envestnet Data and Analytics President Farouk Ferchichi penned an article in Finextra entitled:” Embracing Open Banking for Small Banks” which provided an overview of open banking, the importance open banking for smaller banks, and the upcoming Section 1033 rulemaking from the CFPB.

Fiserv’s Director of Communications Chase Wallace penned an article for their website entitled: “Accelerating the Pace of Innovation” which explained how the company sees the increasing use of AI and data affecting the financial services marketplace, and how Fiserv will be part of this transformation, particularly via deployment of its “easy-to-use APIs” which can “give credit unions and community banks a competitive edge.”

Inverite published a new post on their website entitled: “What is Data Aggregation” which explained data aggregation and aggregators, how it works, and how it can benefit businesses.

Method Co-Founder and COO Mit Shah penned a guest post in Fintech Nexus entitled: “It’s a rate-shopping environment: Do you have the data to compete?” which explored how open banking data and the upcoming Section 1033 rule from the CFPB will pose new challenges and opportunities in today’s rate-shopping environment, particularly in promoting a more competitive marketplace and empowering financial institutions to offer hyper-personalized products and services. He also shared data from a recent Financial Health Network study which showed that customers are three times more likely to be satisfied with their primary financial institution if they feel their institution truly cares about their financial wellness, and five times more likely to purchase additional products from their financial institution in the future.

MX has partnered with Finastra, a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces to provide more seamless, personalized money experiences by integrating MX’s Personal Financial Management (PFM), Insights, and Account Aggregation solutions with Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking solution. This partnership will enable more than 150 financial institutions using the Fusion Digital Banking solution to provide consumers with a robust set of PFM and financial wellness tools, including budgeting and debt management, personalized, proactive insights based on their spending and saving behaviors, and the ability to create a consolidated view of their finances by connecting all of their financial accounts.

Plaid’s Head of Public Policy John Pitts joined the Open Views podcast to discuss the story of open finance, highlighting how it has been driven by consumer demand rather than regulatory intervention. He also covers how, over time, banks have formed deep partnerships with open finance companies such as Plaid, signaling their willingness to adapt and meet consumer demands. John also discussed how regulators are crucial in shaping open finance regulations to protect consumers and foster innovation, the importance of trust and regulation in the financial services industry, and how open finance is seen as a solution to expand access to credit, particularly for credit-invisible individuals.

Trustly’s Matt Janiga, Legal Counsel, Director of Regulatory and Public Affairs, penned a new post for their blog entitled: “Open Banking Update: CFPB Regulation” which gives an overview of what open banking is, recent interest from members of Congress, and how the CFPB’s Section 1033 rule will implement it. Trustly CEO Alex Gonthier also joined PYMTS CEO Karen Webster to discuss the state, and future potential of real-time payments driven by open banking.

Vaultree Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Lasmaili joined the Bospar PR show Politely Pushy with Eric Chemi for a conversation on data privacy, cybersecurity challenges and his personal journey: from financial mathematics, to personally being a victim of data hacking, and leading the company that has pioneered the world’s first Fully Functional Data-In-Use Encryption (FFDUE).

Xero’s  Head of Government Experience Mike Cascone penned an article for Canadian SME entitled: “Open Banking and how Canada stands to benefit from it” which gave a strong overview of what open banking is and particularly how small and medium sized businesses can benefit from it.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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FDATA North America July Newsletter

FDATA NA News

FDATA North America Responds to CFPB Data Broker RFI. In response to the CFPB’s Request for Information (RFI) Regarding Data Brokers, we submitted a comment letter stressing in the strongest possible terms, that third-party providers of financial services that rely on consumer-permissioned data are not data brokers, and therefore should be exempt from any Bureau rulemakings, guidance, or other actions it may consider in the data brokerage space. We also used this opportunity to further deploy our FDATA Privacy Principles which define customer-directed data as financial data that is collected or shared in accordance with a clear affirmative action by or request from an end user or their authorized agent, rather than data collected passively, such as data that may be collected automatically through pixels or cookies as a consumer navigates through web pages. Finally, the letter reiterated our long-standing positions that no third party should have access to any financial data element permissioned by a customer that is not required to fuel the use case for which that customer has opted in, and that the CFPB should expand its supervisory authority to cover data aggregators.

Member News & Activity

Codat published a blog post entitled “5 reasons you need accounting data for your liquidity assessments” which explained how Small and Medium sized businesses (SMBs) can boost their credit applications by sharing not only their bank information, but also accounting data, since accounting data can provide more granular insights into a business’s liquidity and lets the applicant demonstrate how many bank accounts they have,and the total revenue held in each one.

Envestnet Yodlee has announced a customer-permissioned data sharing agreement with American Express. This new API integration will provide new digital banking options for customers and allow them to more easily leverage their American Express account information to better manage their personal finances and business expenses through secure connections with a variety of third-party applications. This integration eliminates the need for credential sharing, improves data accuracy and reliability, and accelerates financial data access.

GoCardless’ Ben Morfoot, Director of Product Management was recently interviewed on Fintech Futures North American Edition’s “What the Fintech” podcast. Ben and FinTech Futures editor Paul Hindle discuss how businesses can utilize bank payments and their key use cases, how advancements in embedded finance and open banking have enabled payment service providers to offer these methods to meet growing demand, and what the future looks like for the digital payments space.

Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano joined Intercontinental Exchange’s “Inside the ICE House” podcast to talk about the future of payments, navigating mergers and how Fiserv’s Clover platform transforms small businesses. Frank shared his story of rising through the ranks of Wall Street, riding a phoenix through the rebirth of First Data, and the future the FinTech Revolution.

Method published a new blog post from its Co-Founder and COO Mit Shah entitled “The Critical Importance of Liability Account Inclusion in the CFPB’s 1033 Rule.” This piece detailed how Method’s technology can help solve the challenges faced by un-and-underbanked Americans, particularly in rural areas, and how the upcoming CFPB Section 1033 rule can help expand and democratize access to modern payment methods and affordable credit.

M Science CEO  Michael V. Marrale delivered a keynote address at Finovate Spring, where he discussed how M Science is leveraging data and artificial intelligence to help clients outperform and how data is the big winner in an AI driven world.

MX announced that it has partnered with iuvity, a cloud-first digital banking and open service platform provider to enable secure data sharing and financial account aggregation within iuvity’s digital banking platform. Through this partnership, iuvity’s clients will be able to leverage MX’s open finance APIs to provide their customers with a more secure and reliable data sharing experience and power insights to help customers meet their financial goals.

Plaid partnered with MIT Technology Review on an article and report entitled “Open finance heralds a new era: Fintech innovations may hold the key to increasing customer demands, evolving regulatory reform, and ample opportunity.” This piece gives an overview of open banking, how it expands financial access and inclusion, and how it can empower the use of alternative data to improve credit scores and access.

Trustly CBO Craig McDonald joined Austin Prey at Pymnts for a Fireside Chat on Account-to-Account (A2A) payments, how they can offer more value, and why they go hand in hand with Open Banking. McDonald explained that while real-time rails have the potential to disrupt the status quo, open banking is key to unlocking their full potential, saying “all of these things coming together, open banking, the regulatory framework, real-time rails, and the data to be able to adjudicate a transaction in real-time will provide merchants with what they really want — a positive authorization response, great UX, great conversion, low cost and a non-refutable transaction.”

Validify has been acquired by Ribbit, Inc, a provider of alternative bank and payment data. The acquisition will create a leading banking and payment data solutions platform with the largest alternative database of bank and payment data in the marketplace. The companies expect that RIBBIT’s predictive analytics and data assets combined with ValidiFI’s verification and compliance solutions will expand the breadth and depth of products and services offered.

Vaultree CEO Ryan Lasmaili penned his inaugural article as a Forbes Councils Member entitled “Resistance Is Not Futile: How To Fight Cybersecurity Complacency” which highlights fully functional Data-In-Use encryption, the necessity of “compliance over complacency” and describes how end-to-end encryption can be implemented.

Vopay published a new blog post entitled “How Real-Time Payment APIs are Transforming Payroll Software” which describes how real-time API’s work, why they are becoming more popular, how they can help meet the growing needs of the gig economy and demand for faster payouts and early wage access.

Xero CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy joined Bloomberg Technology to discuss the global outlook for tech, the state of cloud adoption, where Xero is headed and its competition with Quickbooks. She also gave a more personal interview for this piece in The Star, where she discussed her life background and goals for the company.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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FDATA North America Responds to CFPB Data Broker RFI

June 16, 2023, Washington, DC – In response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Request for Information (RFI) Regarding Data Brokers and Other Business Practices Involving the Collection and Sale of Consumer Information, FDATA North America submitted comment letter stressing in the strongest possible terms, that third-party providers of financial services that rely on consumer-permissioned data are not data brokers, and therefore should be exempt from any Bureau rulemakings, guidance, or other actions it may consider in the data brokerage space.

We also used this opportunity to further deploy our FDATA Privacy Principles which define customer-directed data as financial data that is collected or shared in accordance with a clear affirmative action by or request from an end user or their authorized agent, rather than data collected passively, such as data that may be collected automatically through pixels or cookies as a consumer navigates through web pages. For data to be considered customer-directed, our principles further assert that the end user must also have full utility over any non-proprietary data element for which a data holder holds about them. And critically, our principles state that the end user must have the ability to opt-out of future use of their data at any time.

Finally, the letter reiterated our long-standing positions that no third party should have access to any financial data element permissioned by a customer that is not required to fuel the use case for which that customer has opted in, and that the CFPB should expand its supervisory authority to cover data aggregators.

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FDATA North America June Newsletter

FDATA NA News

FDATA North America Welcomes Newest Member Portabl. FDATA North America’s newest member is Portabl, and company that is solving for reusable, privacy-preserving identity for use in the open finance ecosystem. By allowing end users to aggregate and share different types of identity and reputation information, Portabl is building trusted identity networks and simplifying and automating many parts of the identity compliance stack.

FDATA Holds Inaugural Open Finance Summit in Ottawa. FDATA North America hosted a first-of-its kind Open Finance Summit in Ottawa, Ontario on May 17th. The half day event in the Canadian capital city featured several panels of subject matter experts from FDATA member companies, FDX, Finance Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, and Canadian financial institutions. Attendees also heard keynote remarks from Ron Morrow, Executive Director of Retail Payments Supervision, Bank of Canada and from Abraham Tachjian, Canada’s Open Banking Lead.

Member News & Activity

Basis Theory CEO Colin Luce spent a few minutes in a recent New York Stock Exchange Floor Talk to explain their use cases, company beginnings, and shared the common challenges their customers face and they support them in this ever-changing regulatory environment.

Codat CTO David Hoare joined the Fintech Blueprint podcast to discuss data aggregation, API integrations, breaking down the requirements involved in integrating Codat into small business’ stack, and expanding on Codat’s partnership program with large enterprises.

Envestnet Yodlee’s Data and Analytics has partnered with Axway, the provider of Amplify Open Banking, to provide consistent API access via the FDX (Financial Data Exchange) standard, eliminating the need for proprietary APIs. “Our partnership with Axway will help shorten the time it takes to connect to financial institutions, and subsequently onboard partners, allowing consumers to quickly access their financial data via a secure, common API,” explains Lisa Novier, Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance for Envestnet Data and Analytics. “This seamless flow of data helps us give people and small-to-medium size businesses stronger control over sharing their financial data with third-party financial service providers and receive a more complete view of their financial lives.”

GoCardless has partnered with Bluefort, an independent software vendor and Microsoft solutions partner, to offer a simple way for businesses to manage their billing, payments and accounting directly within Dynamics 365. This integration, available for free through Bluefort’s payment automation platform Bluefort TAPP, will enable Dynamics 365 users across Finance & Supply Chain Management, Dynamics for Sales and Business Central to access Direct Debit and open banking payments, in addition to automatic reconciliation.

Fiserv’s Sunil Sachdev and Matt Wilcox of Fiserv spoke with FinTech Magazine about helping clients bring new financial innovations to market and crafting new digital experiences using open finance.

Morningstar ByAllAccounts Head of the Data Aggregation Strategy and Governance Brian Costello spoke with Tara Unverzagt, President of South Bay Financial Partners at the Morningstar Investment Conference discussing how data aggregation can build great trust between advisors and their clients. Read the retrospective from the moderator Craig Iskowitz, CEO of Ezra Group on the WealthTech Today blog.

Method’s Co-Founder Mit Shah dives into why the CFPB should consider alternatives to authenticate third-party permissioned data access that are safe & secure, and eliminate the need for firms to invest in expensive technological overhauls in a recent piece in the American Banker.

M Science CEO Michael V. Marrale spoke at the Finovate Spring conference on how data can offer valuable insights, and how AI can assist customers in making better business decisions.

MX’s Chief Advocacy Officer Jane Barratt joined the “Banking Transformed” podcast with Jim Marous to discuss how data and insight can transform banking into emotional relationships that can impact people, organizations, and communities.

Petal announced $35 million in new funding, raised in the most difficult technology funding environment in a decade, and announced that it has spun off its Prism Data cash flow underwriting product into an independent company. Prism Data’s open banking infrastructure and analytics platform helps clients improve underwriting capabilities, minimize first-party fraud, and better manage servicing of their portfolios. To date, Prism’s CashScore has been used to inform nearly $2 billion in real-world credit originations for hundreds of thousands of consumers.

Plaid was featured in a Bloomberg Markets Magazine piece which delved into its corporate history, product development, and its role in establishing open banking in the US. The piece also highlighted how Plaid has been working to move away from controversial screen scraping methods, with over 75 percent of its connections now facilitated by APIs.

Trustly recently published The Ultimate Guide to Real-Time Payments, which details the latest trends on RTP and an overview of its current impact globally and in the US. Trustly also released three new blogs: Fraud Prevention in Open Banking, What is Nacha, and Key Learnings from FIS’ 2023 Global Payments Report. Trustly will also partake in a webinar with Cross River Bank about the evolution of faster payments and how FedNow will expand RTP and business growth opportunities. The webinar will take place on June 20th at 9 AM PST, pre-register here.

Vopay recently published a new post on its blog entitled “Definitive Guide To ACH Payments: What Are They and How Do They Work?” This detailed guide includes several handy infographics and goes through the nuts and bolts of ACH systems, the differences between it and other payment methods, how Vopay is involved with this system, and explains some business uses cases and benefits.

Xero Chief Growth Officer Chris O’Neill published an opinion piece in TechRadar Pro entitled: “How SMBs can fast-forward digitalization to support increased productivity.” The piece laid out how small-and-medium sized business can benefit from optimal tech stack and app integration services to streamline their payroll, tax, and accounting practices.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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Video Member Spotlight: Portabl

Nate Soffio, Co-Founder and CEO of Portabl describes how Portabl’s technology is simplifying online user identification and reducing friction within the open banking ecosystem:

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FDATA North America May 2023 Newsletter

FDATA NA News

FDATA North America Responds to CFPB Release of Section 1033 SBREFA Memo. In response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recent release of its Section 1033 SBREFA memo, which summarizes the feedback it received from small business representatives (SERs) during the SBREFA panels earlier this year, FDATA stated that: “the CFPB’s forthcoming Section 1033 rule represents a significant opportunity to create a more competitive and customer-centric financial services marketplace in the U.S. We are glad to see that much of the feedback the CFPB has received from the SERs mirrors FDATA’s positions, including a general view that the 1033 rule should cover a broader scope of accounts, including mortgages, student loans, auto loans, personal loans, prepaid cards, payroll accounts, public benefits, and more. We are also encouraged by discussion among the SERs of the importance of the CFPB establishing authentication standards to ensure that third parties do not experience any undue restrictions in accessing user-permissioned data, as well as the importance of credential-based screen scraping continuing for some period of time given the general lack of token-based APIs that currently exist in the data provider ecosystem. We also echo the robust feedback from the SERs that the proposed limitations on secondary data usage could have unforeseen negative implications for research, product improvements, and a range of other use cases, and suggestions that the Bureau more carefully consider any such limitations. We look forward to continuing to work with the CFPB as it prepares to propose a Section 1033 rulemaking later this year.”

Member News & Activity

Codat CEO and Co-Founder Pete Lord joined the Bank of America Speaker Series to discuss small business data, integration use cases and future Codat growth. Peter will also be joining a session at the upcoming Fintech Nexus USA conference entitled “unlocking financial access through open finance” on May 11.

EQ Bank has been named the best bank in Canada on the Forbes 2023 list of the World’s Best Banks. This is the third year in a row that EQ Bank has been awarded best bank in Canada.

Envestnet’s Lisa Novier appeared as a guest on IBS Intelligence’s IBSi Podcast surrounding open banking in the US, and Yodlee’s partnership with Experian was mentioned in The Paypers coverage of Experian’s new cloud provider.

Flinks’ CEO and Co-Founder Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf was invited to sit on a panel at the Canadian Fintech Summit to talk about how Canadian fintechs can find success during economically uncertain times. He was joined by nesto as they discussed the funding challenges currently facing startups and how they managed to find a way to overcome these obstacles and thrive.

Method Co-Founder and CEO Jose Bethancourt spoke on a panel at the Fintech Meetup conference on ‘building the next decade of consumer finance,’ where he explained how Method connects consumers’ liabilities across over 60k institutions so that lenders can access all of a person’s debt obligations by combining data from credit bureaus with financial institutions’ core banking systems.

Morningstar’s Brian Costello, Head of Data Aggregation Strategy and Governance for ByAllAccounts joined Morningstar Simple, but Not Easy podcast episode entitled: “30,000-Foot View of Financial Advisor Challenges, Including Data and New Regulations.” In the episode, he took a 30,000-foot view of financial advisor challenges and dug into the importance of data and regulations in overcoming these challenges.

MX CEO Jim Magats joined Jim Marous on his “Banking Transformed” podcast to discuss how MX is empowering financial institutions with the tools and insights they need to succeed in the developing open banking landscape and provide exceptional customer experiences.

Plaid announced a new integration with Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. The partnership, delivered via Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud open APIs, provides financial institutions of all sizes within the Finastra ecosystem with account verification tools, making it easier and more secure for consumers to link their account data from their main financial institution with external financial apps and services. This Plaid integration helps these institutions effectively meet these customer demands, ultimately helping them stay competitive with larger banks and emerging market entrants.

Trustly published two new posts on its blog highlighting the critical importance of “Know You Customer” (KYC) to mitigate fraudulent financial activity and a high level guide to the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) and its API standard for secure authorization and authentication.

Vaultree Co-Founder and COO Tilo Weigandt joined Solutions Review’s Expert Insights Series to share his thoughts on how data-in-use encryption is the key to thwarting to Cross-Border Cybercrime.

Vopay published a new comprehensive guide to EFT payments, which includes many useful infographics and explains the many types, problems with traditional payment processions, differences between EFT and ACH and wire transfers, the benefits to users, and a handful of use cases.

Xero published a new video as part of its Xero Future Focus series entitled “Future of Financial Services Open Banking” featuring Xero’s EGM of Global Financial Services, Leigh O’neill. The video unpacks the basics of open banking, the differences between it and open finance, data security, and the opportunities it provides small businesses to manage their finances.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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FDATA North America April 2023 Newsletter

FDATA NA News

FDATA North America Responds to Release of Canada’s 2023 Budget.  In response to the recent release by the Government of Canada of its 2023 Budget, FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms said in a statement: “We are disappointed at the lack of progress in Budget 2023 toward the implementation of Canada’s open banking regime, particularly since the timeline set forth in the 2021 Open Banking Advisory Committee report has now passed. Despite this omission, FDATA North America and its over 30 member companies look forward to continued collaboration with the Department of Finance as it seeks to make a new Canadian consumer-centered open banking system a reality in the coming months.”

FDATA North America Responds to Canadian Draft RPAA Regulations. FDATA North America recently submitted its response to draft regulations from the Bank of Canada and Department of Finance that would implement the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA). The letter noted that adoption of these proposed regulations would see as many as 2,500 payment service providers (“PSPs”) overseen under a strong regulatory framework and would, once finalized and implemented, meaningfully advance the modernization of Canada’s financial services marketplace. It also respectfully suggested that the implementation of these regulations should facilitate an expedited inclusion into the scope of Canada’s open banking framework of payment use cases.

FDATA North America Submits Comments on Canadian Competition Act Review. FDATA North America submitted a letter in response to the Canadian government’s review of the Competition Act, expressing support for the development of a more competitive marketplace in which consumers and SMEs may choose the provider, tool or service that best fits their unique need. The letter stressed the important need to update the Competition Act to reflect today’s current business environment to maintain competition in the market for data-driven financial services. The letter described how restrictions on customer-directed data sharing that directly inhibit competition must be scrutinized under competition laws as the Department of Finance works to implement an open banking regime for Canada, and stressed that any new legislation or regulations regarding competition in the financial services marketplace should be aligned with the Department’s work on this file.

Register Now for FDATA’s Two Upcoming Summits in the US and Canada! FDATA North America will be hosting two Open Banking summits in 2023. The first will be held in Washington, DC, on April 20th, and the second in Ottawa, Canada on May 17th. These events will feature influential speakers, unique networking opportunities, and in-depth conversations with policymakers, public officials, and subject-matter experts from FDATA and its member companies. Space for both events is limited, so be sure reserve your spot via the links above!

Member News & Activity

Codat released a report entitled “America’s Small Business Credit Opportunity” that uses new research to explain how Open Finance can be used to widen access to credit, and how improved data flow can lead to more small business credit applications, higher acceptance rates, and additional revenue. The report can be downloaded here.

Envestnet’s Head of governance, Risk and Compliance Lisa Novier was featured in a Q&A profile in Open Banking Expo, where she explained why she has called for supervision of data aggregation platforms in her written recommendations to the CFPB regarding regulatory oversight of Open Banking, and how the US’s market-driven approach has generated strong demand from consumers for data sharing.

Flinks’ Content and Brand Marketer Annahita Mirsalari wrote a new post for their blog entitled: “Getting the Most Out of Your Financial Data – Broad Categorization vs Data Enrichment” which explained how broad categorization and data enrichment can turn raw financial data into valuable insights which can improve data-driven decision making, increase operational efficiency, and spearhead product innovation.

GoCardless featured a guest post on their blog from Cuckoo’s Principle Engineer Alexander Fenton which explained how open banking can drive innovation beyond just fintechs and online payments.

Morningstar’s Sheryl Rowling published an Advisor Insight article entitled: “Why Advisors Should Care About Open Banking” which explained open banking basics and gave a high-level overview of the CFPB’s work on issuing a new regulation under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act that would create a consumer data portability right in the U.S.

MX announced a partnership with Zūm Rails, an industry leader in data-powered, instant payment solutions, to power more seamless payments and money movement for customers of financial institutions and fintechs in Canada. Instant payment solutions from Zūm Rails and MX’s instant account verification (IAV) capabilities will work together to enable instant payments, including electronic funds transfers (EFT). This open banking approach streamlines the onboarding process and mitigates fraud risk for companies while also improving the money experience for end consumers who want better access to their financial data in a single view and the ability to transfer and use funds quickly.

Plaid’s Co-founder and CEO Zach Perret was recently featured in a CNBC interview, where highlighted how banks are gaining fintech market share, pointing out that, “The banks themselves are the biggest fintech companies.”

Vopay published a new guide to understanding APIs and financial data aggregation. This guide is written in clear, understandable language and includes several infographics to help explain the mechanics and benefits of data aggregation to those who may be entirely unfamiliar with it.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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FDATA North America Responds to CFPB Release of Section 1033 SBREFA Memo

For Immediate Release: FDATA North America Responds to CFPB Release of Section 1033 SBREFA Memo

Contact: Justin Santopietro; [email protected]

April 4, 2023, Washington, DC – In response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recent release of its Section 1033 SBREFA memo, which summarizes the feedback it received from small business representatives (SERs) during the SBREFA panels earlier this year, FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms released the following statement:

“The CFPB’s forthcoming Section 1033 rule represents a significant opportunity to create a more competitive and customer-centric financial services marketplace in the United States. We are glad to see that much of the feedback the CFPB has received from the SERs during the SBREFA process mirrors FDATA’s positions, including a general view that the 1033 rule should cover a broader scope of accounts, including mortgages, student loans, auto loans, personal loans, prepaid cards, payroll accounts, public benefits, and more. We are also encouraged by discussion among the SERs of the importance of the CFPB establishing authentication standards to ensure that third parties do not experience any undue restrictions in accessing user-permissioned data, as well as the importance of credential-based screen scraping continuing for some period of time given the general lack of token-based APIs that currently exist in the data provider ecosystem. We also echo the robust feedback the SERs provided to the CFPB that its proposed limitations on secondary data usage could have unforeseen negative implications for research, product improvements, and a range of other use cases, and suggestions that the Bureau more carefully consider any such limitations. We look forward to continuing to work with the CFPB as it prepares to propose a Section 1033 rulemaking later this year.”

FDATA North America and its 30+ member companies have actively collaborated with the CFPB over the past several years as it has worked to implement Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Our efforts have included detailed letters in response to the October 2020 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) and the recent SBREFA Outline of Proposals for Consideration.

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