North America-Newsletters

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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

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America March 2023 Newsletter

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: Envestnet

This month’s member spotlight features Lisa Novier, Head of Governance, Risk and Compliance at Envestnet Data Analytics. Lisa tells us how Envestnet’s role in providing connectivity of consumer-permissioned financial data is critical in realizing the full potential of this data and explains Envestnet’s high level of engagement with policymakers to promote finalization of the Dodd-Frank Section 1033 rulemaking.

FDATA NA News

FDATA North America Releases Data Privacy Principles. FDATA North America and its 30+ member companies recently released a set of principles to govern the usage, disclosures, liability, oversight, and technology involved in open finance ecosystems. Upon release of these new principles, FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms said: “As policymakers in both Canada and the United States contemplate open finance and federal data privacy frameworks, FDATA North America’s members are pleased to have collaborated on a set of privacy principles that we hope will inform their work. This release is a detailed and comprehensive set of principles which we intend to serve as critical guideposts for legislators and regulators in the U.S. and Canada as they undertake the important work of creating modernized, customer-centric financial services regulatory environments.” A high-level summary of these principles is available here. The full set of these principles is available here and can be shared with attribution.

Save the Dates: FDATA to Host 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

Basis Theory has been named to Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in Security for 2023, ranking #3 ‘for making it easy to tokenize any data.’

Codat’s Gabby Macsweeney, Head of Communication and Product recently sat down with Caary Capital for a Q&A to discuss what Canada can learn from the UK regarding Open Banking and funding small businesses, particularly on the use of standardized ‘funding passports’ that can improve and shorten the application process for small businesses. While acknowledging that Canada is behind the UK when it comes to formal open banking implementation, Macsweeney did note “that four million Canadians are already accessing budgeting or account aggregation tools via screen scraping in the absence of APIs.”

Flinks’ Meng Guan, Product Marketing Manager, published a new post on the Flinks blog entitled: “Lending in volatile times: harness the power of cash flow analysis” which explains how consumer-permissioned data aggregation allows lenders to obtain cash flow data directly from borrowers’ bank accounts and conduct cash flow analysis to quickly gauge borrowers’ ability to repay. The post also explained how this cash flow analysis can be used to expand access to credit, strengthen fraud prevention, and improve the efficiency of lenders’ processes.

Method Financial’s Co-Founder and COO Mit Shah published a new blog post entitled: Open Finance Takes Center Stage in Washington” which described the importance of the CFPB’s Section 1033 rulemaking to facilitate open banking in the US, and detailed how and why Method is engaging with policymakers on this issue, including an overview of the recent comment letter they submitted in response to the CFPB’s Section 1033 SBREFA Outline.

Morningstar ByAllAccounts Head of Data Aggregation Strategy Brian Costello is featured in a question and answer-styled article titled  “The hopes and limitations of consumer data services in the US” by The Paypers. The article provides valuable insight and details into the latest consumer financial data moves in the US, and the future of data sharing and embedded finance.

MX’s CTO Wes Hummel joined the Fintech Confidential podcast with Tedd Huff to discuss his journey in the fintech industry, the future of open banking, and shared his insights on customer focus, scalability, and security in financial technology. He also talked about the legacy of MX’s late co-founder, Brandon Dewitt, and the opportunities ahead for the company and the broader fintech industry.

Plaid’s Head of Policy John Pitts and Kaitlin Asrow, Executive Deputy Superintendent of Research and Innovation of the New York Department of Financial Services, discussed innovation and regulation at a recent Money 20/20 conference. The discussion was recently released on Money 20/20s “Money Pot” podcast and is available here. The pair discussed ways that regulators can think more in line with innovators, and innovators can better communicate with rulemakers.

Trustly announced a partnership with PointsBet in collaboration with Cross River Bank to leverage Open Banking so PointsBet can offer players instant payouts, giving them real-time access to their winnings. In addition to the announcement, Cross River Bank, Trustly, and PointsBet hosted a webinar: Enhancing the Faster Payments Ecosystem. Trustly also hosted a webinar on Open Banking: The Open Banking Era: How We Got Here & Where We Are Going, and published this blog post which breaks down the concept of Open Finance.

Vaultree published a new blog post entitled: “How encryption can help the finance industry win the battle against cyberattacks” which explains how fully functional data-in-use encryption is becoming the best tool to help financial institutions mitigate the costs of data breaches and ensure customer data privacy.

Vopay published a new blog post entitled: “Hidden Value in Plain Sight: The Potential of Embedded Finance” which details the significant growth and future potential of embedded finance and the ‘API economy’ that goes with it.

Xero produced a new video entitled: “Quality over Quantity: Exploring Data Collection Minimization,” in which Xero’s experts unpack data collection minimization, including the pitfalls of collecting more data than necessary, the benefits of giving customers choice about what data they disclose, and the importance of explaining why personal data is being requested. Kendra Vant, EGM, Data at Xero, moderates this panel discussion featuring Claire Knight Whiting, GM Legal, Global Privacy at Xero, and Xero’s Responsible Data Use Advisory Council members Anna Johnston of Salinger Privacy and Maribel Lopez of Lopez Research.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America February 2023 Newsletter

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: Method Financial

This month’s member spotlight features Mit Shah, COO and Co-Founder of Method Financial, who explains how Method’s technology allows customers to securely permission their financial data to third-party providers of their choosing without having to use traditional credential-based methods:

FDATA NA News

FDATA Welcomes GoCardless and Method Financial as New Members. FDATA is happy to welcome two new member companies this month: GoCardless and Method Financial. GoCardless is a direct bank payment platform that streamlines both one-time and recurring payments, can collect payments from 30+ countries quickly and securely, and easily integrates into over 350 other business systems. Method Financial is an embedded banking service that allows developers to easily retrieve and pay any of their users’ debts through a single API, which provides access to 15,000+ lenders in the US, covering 95% of consumer debt.

FDATA Submits Comment Letter in Response to CFPB Section 1033 SBREFA Outline of Proposals for Consideration. On January 25th, FDATA submitted a comment letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in response to its Outline of Proposals for Consideration for the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) implementing Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. FDATA North America has long advocated for the CFPB to issue a rule implementing Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act using the best information available from the broadest number of market stakeholders possible. We commend the CFPB for outlining a strong series of proposals that, when implemented, will create a more competitive, more accessible, and more inclusive financial services marketplace. Our letter also encouraged the CFPB to broaden the scope of covered accounts and covered recipients under the rule to maximize its impact, among other important improvements we suggest the Bureau to consider. FDATA North America looks forward to continuing our positive engagement with the CFPB as this rulemaking process continues.

Save the Dates: FDATA to Host 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. Stay tuned for more details, including registration, sponsorship opportunities, and speakers, in the coming weeks!

Member News & Activity

Codat was recognized in OpenFutureWorld’s annual Open Finance Global Rankings of the organizations, countries, and individuals leading progress in open finance around the world.

Flinks has published an “Open Banking Glossary” of the most frequently used terminologies in North American open banking that will be regularly updated.

MX’s Vice President for Strategic Accounts & New Markets Matt West joined the Fintech Insider podcast to discuss the journey from Open Banking to Open Finance to date, and the challenges and opportunities for developing a truly global system.

Plaid Co-Founder and CEO Zach Perret joined several of his colleagues for an hour-long discussion of their 2023 fintech predictions, including developments in crypto, the FedNow system, and if open finance is going to finally “take off” in the U.S.

Trustly CEO Alex Gonthier was featured in a Leaders in Payments Podcast episode discussing the Trustly origin story, its core mission, and its vision for the future as well as where he sees the industry going in the next two to three years as it relates to real-time payments, crypto, blockchain, and stablecoin. Trustly also released this whitepaper which helps merchants understand the true cost of card acceptance and how to lower processing costs.

Vopay published a new post on its blog entitled “The Need For Speed: How FinTech Is Addressing Lending’s Biggest Pain Points,” which explained the many diverse benefits of faster payment options, including reduction of NSF fees and rapid loan disbursements.

Xero’s Chief Product Officer Anna Curzon spoke with BetaKit to explain the challenges of building what she calls a “purposeful platform” for small businesses, and mentioned how the limited development of open banking in Canada is a persistent barrier to developing new products.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America January 2023 Newsletter

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 NA News

Save the Dates: FDATA to Host 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. Stay tuned for more details, including registration, sponsorship opportunities, and speakers, in the coming weeks!

Member News & Activity

APIMetrics CEO David O’Neill spoke at API Days Paris, where he explained how his company deploys industry-leading best practices for monitoring API functionality and security.

Atomic Financial CEO Jordan Wright appeared in a spotlight video produced by Atomic’s partner Galileo Financial Technologies, where he explained how their payroll API systems are designed to help the most financially vulnerable.

Basis Theory CEO Colin Luce joined Money 20/20 on its “Money Pot” podcast to discuss how to “end the strife” between data security and innovation. Luce also explained how Basis Theory’s technology can change the nature of data security and compliance.

Codat published on its blog a case-study of how financial services provider Ampla used Codat’s universal API to streamline its underwriting and analytics. To assess and track customers’ financial health, Ampla needed instant, ongoing access to business data through its commerce, retail, and accounting systems. Initially, Ampla tried to build the required integrations in-house, placing undue burden on its development team. Ampla leveraged Codat’s token migration feature to transfer hundreds of active connections from their in-house Shopify integration to Codat’s API—without their customers having to reconnect. From there, it joined a number of other integrations, delivering standardized data from multiple commerce and accounting systems directly into Ampla’s platform.

Envestnet Data & Analytics published a new survey which shows that clients who use data aggregation services are more loyal to the wealth and investment management firms that provide these services and are more likely to use their products in the future. The survey data also shows Envestnet clients who use financial apps and tools powered by their aggregated data are even more loyal, with more than 90 percent saying they would log in and use their wealth management firms’ site or app more frequently.

Flinks founder and COO Frederick Lavoie was interviewed at OBExpo Canada 2022. Lavoie said he expects there will be a series of Canadian financial institutions, some of them large, that will adopt formal, API-driven Open Banking and be in production within the next 12-18 months, regardless of the government’s ongoing efforts to build an Open Banking regime.

M Science received Benzinga’s Global Fintech Award and was named the Best Financial Research Company.

MX published a new blog post entitled, “Checking the lists…Safeguarding consumer data sharing,” which explained how the pending consumer data right regulations in the United States and Canada will require account providers to: give consumers visibility into when third parties use their data; grant access to the data they want, when they want; and revoke access with ease.

Plaid recently hosted a webinar with the American Banker to discuss the future of open finance. The event featured industry experts from Plaid, the Consumer Bankers Association, and the American Bankers Association who discussed why consumer demand is driving U.S. digital financial innovation, how open finance unlocks new opportunities for financial institutions, competition and connectivity, deepening bank-fintech partnerships, and building a safer, more trustworthy financial services ecosystem. A video recap of the event and review of the key takeaways and insights for how financial institutions can set a strategy for open banking success is now available on Plaid’s blog.

Questrade was named Best Canadian Brokerage by leading financial media outlet Benzinga at its Global Fintech Awards. A seasoned group of judges, including editorial staff, industry leaders, and advisors in the fintech space, vetted, nominated, and picked the winners in each category. The awards are judged based on criteria including innovation, performance, functionality, impact, and audience appeal. “We are honored to be recognized on the international stage as the leading brokerage in Canada,” said Edward Kholodenko, president and CEO, Questrade. “We are proud of our achievements during these challenging times, and believe it reflects our ongoing commitment to help Canadians ultimately become more financially successful and secure, through our investments in technology, financial empowerment, and customer service.”

Trustly’s blog featured a special guest post from its partner Cross River Bank entitled, “Making Real-Time Payments a Reality Through Partnerships,” which detailed the state of real-time payments in the United States, shared the latest data on the strong growth of these payments, made some predictions about future growth, and explained how Cross River and Trustly are working to make real-time payments more accessible.

Vaultree’s CEO and Co-Founder Ryan Lasmaili conducted an interview with the cybersecurity blog Enterprise Security Tech to discuss Vaultree’s mission, how it is tackling the growing problem of data breaches, and how its technical breakthroughs in encryption, search, and processing has improved third-party operational performance and reduced disruption of data access.

Vopay published a year-in-review blog post entitled, “The Top Payment Takeaways From 2022 and What To Watch For In 2023,” which recapped the many advancements in the payments industry, including how the expansion of open banking has made account-to-account (A2A) payments faster, easier, cheaper, and more secure.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America December 2022 Newsletter

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:Questrade

This month’s Member Spotlight features Christine Day, Chief Information Officer at Questrade, who explains the myriad ways that consumer-permissioned data sharing can add value, lower costs, increase competition, and increase personalization of a wide variety of financial products and services:

FDATA NA News

FDATA Applauds CFPB’s Release of Small Business Panel Proposals for Section 1033 Rulemaking. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has published proposals for the upcoming Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel for the Dodd-Frank Section 1033 rulemaking, and  FDATA applauds the CFPB for this timely release. This outline marks the first concrete step toward implementation of an open finance system in the United States and affirms that consumers should have complete control over their financial data. If implemented, the framework envisioned within the outline will strongly align with the goals that FDATA North America has long supported: a national, technology-neutral financial data portability standard that will allow consumers to select in a more competitive ecosystem from the financial services providers that can best improve their financial wellbeing. FDATA North America commends the CFPB staff and Director Chopra for their diligent work and looks forward to working with the CFPB to promote an expansive, customer-centric proposed rule to implement Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. FDATA is in the process of preparing a comment letter to submit to the CFPB following completion of the SBREFA meetings.

Member News & Activity

Atomic Financial, a provider of payroll connectivity, announced that it is expanding its solutions suite beyond consumer-permissioned access to support connectivity for employer and human resource administrative systems. By offering broader integration options, Atomic aims to give customers the most comprehensive coverage, faster time from integration to go-live, and a vastly improved product experience when it comes to connecting with HR systems. This development makes Atomic the first to market with payroll connectivity integrations and authentications for both consumers and businesses to permission access to financial data in payroll systems and human resource platforms. Atomic’s EmployerLink solutions will initially support use cases for worker’s compensation insurance, earned wage access (EWA), and employer benefits.

Basis Theory’s co-founder Colin Luce joined Remy Blaire on Fintech.tv to discuss how companies use tokenization to handle financial data protection and compliance.

Codat published a new blog post entitled “What makes SMBs willing to share data with financial providers?” that shared their research showing 67 percent of SMB borrowers expressed willingness to share their financial data with credit providers. Codat’s research also shows that growing businesses and those open to alternative lenders are even more willing to share financial data, and that the ability to access better loan rates was the largest incentive for data sharing.

Envestnet’s Group President of Data & Analytics Farouk Ferchichi penned an article in Finextra entitled “We Must Accelerate Open Banking to Help Withstand Today’s Economic Volatility” which outlined how open banking can offer quick and reliable visibility of personal finances and gives users a more secure and seamless way to connect their financial accounts. They also produced an on-demand webinar entitled “Protecting customers, their data, and your business from financial fraud with account tokens” about how sensitive financial data can be protected from hackers and how complex account verification processes can be simplified via open banking.

Flinks published a new blog post by its product marketer Alex Coleman entitled “OAuth Performance: Improve User Experience and Increase Conversions” that describes how OAuth technology enables Flinks’ end users to connect their bank accounts to a chosen fintech without sharing credentials. This educational post includes screenshots and descriptions of of their authentication/onboarding flow, and describes hows OAuth eliminates errors and barriers from traditional login systems, such as password changes and multi-factor authorization.

MX’s Chief Advocacy Officer Jane Barratt joined Jim Marous on the Financial Brand to discuss how data and insight can transform banking into emotional relationships that can impact people, organizations, and communities. MX also published a video from their recent Money Experience Summit entitled “How Lenders Can Meet Borrower Expectations in Today’s Financial Climate” that featured discussion on how customer expectations of instant-access to a wide variety of products and services is driving further fintech innovation.

Petal’s Prism Data, an open banking analytics platform, recently introduced CashScore v3, a powerful new version of its CashScore credit scoring model that leverages anonymized, consumer-permissioned open banking data to fully illuminate a consumer’s true credit risk. CashScore v3 is the first-ever consortium-based cash flow underwriting model, built using millions of anonymized, consumer-permissioned records from a variety of different banks, credit products and customer segments. Similar to traditional models like FICO or VantageScore, Prism’s consortium-based CashScore v3 offers lenders a highly predictive tool they can use off-the-shelf to more precisely assess credit risk in any consumer context—from credit cards and personal loans to mortgages and auto loans, among others.

Plaid’s John Anderson, Head of Payments, joined the Payments Journal Podcast alongside Mark Smith, Head of Payments Business and Market Development at AWS, and Tim Sloane, Vice President of Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group. The group discussed how data connectivity is empowering the democratization of payments, improving consumer experience, and constantly driving new use cases. Anderson also penned a post on Plaid’s blog on the subject of “safer, smarter, faster” bank payments.

Trustly’s Rick Costello, Head of Digital Commerce, spoke with Rethink Retail at NACS online about what Trustly’s open banking payments solutions can do for merchants, particularly in the convenience store business, including reducing payment fees and risks.

Vaultree’s Pedro Aravena wrote a post on the Dev forum entitled “What is the difference between API and SKD?” that explained the difference between APIs and SKDs. APIs perform the integration between systems and SKDs make it possible to create an application and can couple APIs — but not the other way around.

Vopay published a real-time payment guide intended for Canadian business owners looking to learn more about real-time payment technology. The guide explains the operations and advantages of real-time payments, and makes some predictions for their future.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America November 2022 Newsletter

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: EQ Bank

This month’s Member Spotlight features Cathy Ly, Vice President of Customer Experience and Operations, who tells us how challenger banks like EQ rely on customer-permissioned data access to offer custom and competitive financial services to a wide array of Canadians:

FDATA NA News

FDATA Applauds CFPB’s Release of Small Business Panel Proposals for Section 1033 Rulemaking. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has published proposals for the upcoming Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel for the Dodd-Frank Section 1033 rulemaking, and  FDATA is applauding the CFPB for this timely release. This outline marks the first concrete step towards the implementation of an open finance system in the United States and affirms that consumers should have complete control over their financial data. If implemented, the framework envisioned within the outline will strongly align with the goals that FDATA North America has long supported: a national, technology-neutral financial data portability standard that will allow consumers to select in a more competitive ecosystem from the financial services providers that can best improve their financial wellbeing. We applaud the CFPB staff and Director Chopra for their diligent work and look forward to working with the CFPB to promote an expansive, customer-centric proposed rule to implement Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act.

FDATA Highlights Importance of API Standards and Monitoring. As both Canada and the United States continue to move toward open banking via APIs, it is essential that minimum API standards be set in open banking frameworks to ensure that consumers and SMEs have uninterrupted access to their financial data. To this end, FDATA has developed four principles that will be critical to the design of a well-implemented API environment in North America. These principles cover data scope, reliability standards, fallback options, and the necessity of establishing a neutral monitoring agency.

Member News & Activity

Codat published an article in Fintech Times explaining how open banking could be the key to reducing the funding gap for small businesses.  Codat uses its recent research, which found a negative attitude toward available financing options among SME decisionmakers.

DirectID recently announced a partnership with SME capital provider GOT CAPITAL, which will allow SMEs applying for financing to use the power of Open Banking within the application journey and allow agents at Got Capital to quickly categorize and determine businesses’ true revenue without the need for PDF or paper bank statements. This new solution will allow for a much faster and accurate process, de-risking the financing while providing a better experience for SMEs.

Fiserv’s Vice Chairman Frank Sanchez joined the Tearsheet Podcast to discuss the promise and challenges associated with next generation cores, how fintechs are leveraging them in pushing open finance forward, what sets them apart from legacy banking cores, and what innovations we can anticipate in the near future.

Flinks published a new blog post by its product marketer Alex Coleman entitled, “Open Banking: Building or Buying,” which describs the state of open banking in several nations and explains the role of data intermediaries, particularly data aggregators, in establishing connectivity between financial institutions and consumers and SMEs.

Interac sponsored an event in Ottawa on open banking. Hosted by The Globe and Mail, the event featured panels that discussed the framing of open banking, data privacy and security, and accreditation and liability. Abraham Tachjian, Canada’s Open Banking Lead, closed the event by discussing what’s next for open banking now that the work of the working groups is coming to a close.

Kabbage was listed as a winner for this year’s IBSIntelligence NeoChallenger Bank Awards 2022. This recognition showcases its commitment to backing small businesses through innovative and impactful banking technology.

Morningstar ByAllAccounts published a whitepaper entitled “Open Banking for Wealth Management in the United States,” which advocates for open baking within the investment and wealth management sphere. The whitepaper explains how today’s open banking direct data connections provide reliable and secure access to the critical data necessary to provide personalized advice and maximize positive client outcomes.

MX’s Bose Chan, Head of Strategic Partnerships, joined the LiminalStrategy State of Identity podcast with Cameron D’Ambrosi to discuss what open banking means for banks, how it differs from end users or non-banking entities, and what to consider when building open banking capabilities.

Plaid’s Ginger Baker wrote a post for their blog entitled, “Access to financial data helps consumers navigate a difficult economy.” The post detailed how the growth of fintech adoption will increase the role that financial service providers have in helping their consumers tap into the benefits of data connectivity. The post included a link to Plaid’s recently published report, “The Fintech Effect: Stability, Impact, and Building for the Future,” which offers the latest data on consumer trends and insights on the future of digital finance.

Petal was named to CB Insight’s Fintech 250 list of most promising fintech companies around the world and Tracxn’s Emerging Startups 2022: Top Payment Startups.

Trustly welcomed back its founder Alex Gonthier, who will now operate as CEO of its Americas division. They were also featured in FinExtra’s first-ever North American 2023 Digital Banking Report where Nate Marquiss, Trustly’s Head of Finance, gave his expert take on what the future holds for Open Banking. They also published this blog post which highlights some key takeaways from this year’s G2E Summit, where they explored the future of all things Open Banking in the Gaming industry.

Vaultree has been shortlisted as one of the Top 50 global startups for the 4 Years From Now (#4YFN23) Awards 2023.

Vopay CEO Hamed Arbabi wrote an article for Fintech.Ca entitled, “Financial Inclusion Is Our Next Economy,” which detailed the reasons why many Americans remain unbanked, the risk of a cashless society, and how consumers could be better served by digital financial services.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America October 2022 Newsletter

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: Flinks

This month’s FDATA Member Spotlight features Dominique Samson, VP of Corporate Affairs at Flinks, who explains how improved data connectivity can reduce friction in the financial services ecosystem and benefit consumers with limited credit history:

FDATA NA News

FDATA submits comments to Canada’s Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) as part of its 2023 pre-budget consultations. In our submission to FINA, we called on the Canadian government to include language in Budget 2023 asserting the importance of governance in an open banking framework. We also argued that:

  • Any open banking governance entity must be neutral, transparent, and nimble;
  • Lawmakers allocate sufficient and sustained funding in Budget 2023 toward the implementation of an open banking framework and governance entity;
  • Lawmakers include language in Budget 2023 outlining its approach to Open Finance, the next logical step after Open Banking; and
  • The framework must truly unlock market innovation and competition to benefit Canadian consumers and businesses by including an amendment to the Canadian Payments Act to grant federally regulated payment service providers access to Payment Canada’s forthcoming real-time retail payment system and make them eligible for membership in Payments Canada.

We also asserted that any open banking governance entity in Canada must be:

  • Neutral and not controlled by any particular stakeholder(s) with commercial interests in the ecosystem;
  • Transparent in that it invites and considers stakeholder input and subjects its decisions to an open, publicly visible process); and
  • Nimble and capable of making binding decisions relatively quickly and without undue bureaucracy, and has 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.

FDATA Highlights Importance of API Standards and Monitoring. As both Canada and the United States continue to move toward open banking via APIs, it is essential that minimum API standards be set in open banking frameworks to ensure that consumers and SMEs have uninterrupted access to their financial data. To this end, FDATA has developed four principles that will be critical to the design of a well-implemented API environment in North America. These principles cover data scope, reliability standards, fallback options, and the necessity of establishing a neutral monitoring agency.

 

Member News & Activity

APImetrics CEO David O’Neill joined a live webcast to discuss five lessons they’ve learned monitoring Open Banking stacks over the last three years. O’Neill also discussed what the experience has taught the company about DevOps in regulated sectors where it’s possible for two teams of operations engineers to face off in front of a regulator and be able to prove that they are both in the wrong.

Basis Theory was tagged as one of Business Insider’s “Most Promising Fintech Companies.”

Fiserv posted a new episode of its podcast, “Blurring the Line Between Fintechs and Financial Institutions,” which featured David McIninch discussing how the evolution is changing how people move and manage money while providing growing opportunities for financial institutions.

Flinks product marketer Alex Coleman published a new blog post, “Open Banking, Open APIs, OAuth: What Does It All Mean?,” which covered existing data aggregation methods, the transition to open banking, how APIs and Open APIs work, an intro into OAuth, and the security and legal implications of open banking.

MX’s Nicky Klein, VP of Open Finance, spoke at MX’s Money Experience Summit saying “not embracing open banking is hurting your business. If you don’t enable your customers to connect with the apps they want, they’re going to bank elsewhere.” MX also announced record-setting gains in financial data connectivity and the general availability of new product innovation and new implementation partners that bolster the MX platform.

Plaid published a new blog post Q&A with Colby Ross from Project Finance, a digital banking solution for banks and credit unions. Ross shared with Plaid how his company is using their Core Exchange integration to remove credential sharing, help customers achieve financial wellness, and build a customized world-class digital banking experience.

Validify has partnered with Insight, a financial services software provider, to be their selected banking and payment data provider to offer new, exclusive services to their customers. The two companies have collaborated to create custom, proprietary solutions, including TruBank and TruDDA. These powerful data services will be available only on Insight’s DecisionCloud Platform for the exclusive benefit of their customers.

Vaultree has shared the first episode of Vaultree Cast, a podcast “from data privacy enthusiasts to data privacy enthusiasts.” In this first episode, Thiago Alves, Head of Security Research at Mosyle, shares valuable cybersecurity career advice.

Vopay CEO Hamed Arbabi sat down with FinTec Buzz to chat about his career, payments modernization, entrepreneurship, how the pandemic has highlighted a strong need for innovation, and how businesses need to update legacy software and innovate their processes.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America September 2022 Newsletter

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: Betterment

In this Member Spotlight, Betterment’s Associate General Counsel Josh Rubin explains how access to consumer-permissioned financial data is critical to Betterment’s ability to offer high quality, low-cost advice to everyday investors:

FDATA NA News

FDATA To Host Virtual US Reporter Briefing on Open Banking and Section 1033 Rulemaking

Later this month, FDATA North America will host a virtual reporter briefing covering open banking in the United States and the status of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Section 1033 rulemaking. As the CFPB works to convene a SBREFA panel as part of this rulemaking, the briefing will feature insights from FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms, and representatives from five member companies including Plaid, MX, Trustly, Envsetnet, Morningstar, and Petal. Individuals interested in attending should contact [email protected].

FDATA NA Welcomes Newest Member Atomic Financial

FDATA North America is excited to announce its newest member Atomic Financial. Atomic is a Utah-based fintech that builds infrastructure for connecting payroll accounts to other apps, which can help with money management and income verification for lending.

Member News & Activity

Basis Theory published a new primer entitled “Data Security 101”, complete with visuals and examples, to help explain how encryption works to business leaders and product managers. Since there are many different ways to encrypt and decrypt data, uderstanding the fundamentals of data encryption can help design those solutions and remove some of the pain points.

BillGO published a new blog post entitled “Four Ways Your Consumer Benefit from Modern Bill Pay,” which details how easy, centralized biller set-up, secure payments using a virtual card, and instantaneous payments, confirmations, notifications and reminders provide value to customers.

Codat has joined the consortium of fintech and security compliance companies, supporting the Open Finance Data Security Standard (OFDSS), a proposed framework of requirements that address security risks commonly encountered by emerging fintechs that manage consumer financial information. The OFDSS is focused on setting a common standard for data security in the Open Finance industry and is designed to be a living document that will evolve over time to meet the needs of the industry, incorporate new technology, and mitigate emerging risks.

Envestnet has released a new report entitled “The Intelligent Financial Life: The Unexpected Intersection Between Technology, Clarity, and the Human Connection.” This report explores how clients’ attitudes toward financial advice, technology, and behaviors differ from one generation to the next.

Fiserv General Manager of Aggregation and Information Services , Jamie DelMedico, joined the Tearsheet Podcast to discuss how the evolution of data processes are helping drive the push toward open finance. Jamie explained how “the whole idea of open finance is powered by data, whereby the data from a financial institution or brokerage is pulled into an experience that then powers some other third-party experience…data is the crux of open finance.” He also shared some of Fiserv’s open finance use-cases and the potential of “alternative” financial data to expand access to credit.

Kabbage has been listed on this year’s Top 100 Financial Technology Companies by The Financial Technology Report. This recognition showcases its dedication for small businesses and its efforts to provide them with innovative products.

Morningstar announced an upcoming webinar entitled “Why open banking data access is essential for wealth management”, which will feature speakers from two FDATA NA Members as well as its Executive Director Steve Boms. The discussion will focus on how the current state of open banking in the US is rapidly evolving, why open banking is so significant for advisors and investors, how high-quality data makes a difference in powering investment solutions, and what to look for when partnering with a wealth data experts.

MX’s Lexi Hall sat down for a Q&A with Insider Intelligence, where she discussed the state of open banking regulation in the United States and the CFPB’s Section 1033 rule. She noted that “what’s exciting about open finance is that there is consensus around it….the industry has consensus on about 85% or 90% of the 1033 rule that the CFPB is considering. Some of the nuts and bolts that are still being decided, but we got here because the industry figured quite a lot of it out on its own.”

Petal was included in Forbes and TrueBridge Capital’s list of the US’s 25 venture-backed startups most likely to become unicorns. Using machine learning to analyze bank transactions, Petal offers credit cards to people who might previously have been disqualified. Since its 2017 launch, the New York City-based company has issued more than 300,000 cards with its banking partner WebBank.

Plaid’s Global Head of Policy John Pitts joined the Breaking Banks fintech podcast with Brett King to discuss how open banking can drive financial services toward a more consumer-centric model to build trust among users.

Trustly announced a new partnership with Conotoxia to give users a fast, safe way to transfer funds internationally via Open Banking. The company also published a blog post on the status of the developing Open Banking regulations in North America, and another that examines how new account-to-account payment trends are driving up the demand for more Open Banking solutions.

Validify published a new blog post entitled “Say No to Friction! Leverage Bank Data Without the Login” which explains how its frictionless, no login required, banking and payment solutions provideaccess to powerful bank and payment information without the associated friction.

Vopay published a new blog post entitled “Faster Payments: Fund Loans In Real-Time 24/7” which describes how lenders can benefit from real-time payments to rapidly fund their loans, avoid manual bank and credit card disputes, and save on transaction fees.

Xero announced a new partnership with the Canadian bank BMO to help small businesses further automate their bookkeeping tasks. This integration will enable BMO customers to connect directly and help gain back time previously spent on data entry and reconciliation. It will also introduce some new features, including tools to help customers automatically receive their latest transactions and account balances in their Xero account daily, a 1-year transaction and balance history right upon starting, and the ablity to modify or deactivate this integration at any time from their BMO account.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America August 2022 Newsletter

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: Trustly

In this interview, Trustly Americas President Pete Ohser explains how consumer-permissioned data access greatly expands options, lowers costs, and removes barriers to financial services, as well as detailing how Trustly has been working with the policymaking and banking communities to make open banking a reality:

FDATA NA News

FDATA Develops Draft Open Banking Privacy Principles 

FDATA North America’s Privacy Working Group, a joint and ongoing effort between representatives from FDATA’s 30+ members, is continuing development of 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 will inform FDATA’s input into data privacy discussions taking place in both the U.S. and Canada in the months ahead. In the U.S., House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) recently introduced a financial data privacy discussion draft that, among other priorities, proposes to modernize the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) to include data aggregators under the Act’s framework, and calls for consumers to have increased control over how their financial data is used. In Canada, the government recently tabled bill C-27, which, if enacted would provide federal data privacy and portability standards across the country.

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 and small business data protection.

Member News & Activity

Basis Theory published two new posts on its blog; One which answered 10 of their most frequently asked questions about data tokenization, and another that provided a brief explainer breaking down the 2022 Nacha Data Protection Requirements.

Betterment, which relies on customer-permissioned financial data to streamline investment decisions, was named “Best Overall Robo Advisor” by The Wall Street Journal because of its competitive fees, investment offerings, and customer support.

BillGO published a blog post entitled, “Why Fintechs Should Invest In Bill Pay Technology,” which featured thoughts from Daniel Hawtof, BillGO’s SVP of Bill Pay Product. Hawtoff said, “Consumers are busy…and real time bill pay is hard to deliver. Most banks and fintechs don’t want to invest the time or resources to build the technology and payment network necessary to make real time — or even same-day payments a reality. But BillGO has built (and continues to invest in) the technology and payment network to ensure we are on the leading edge of real time payments.”

Codat CEO & Co-Founder Peter Lord recently joined Miguel Armaza on the Fintech Leaders podcast to discuss Codat’s origins, its international expansion, how it helps SMBs access credit, and the company’s future plans.

DirectID recently launched a new page on its revamped website explaining how the power of open banking data can scale businesses, drive efficiencies, manage risk, and create fairer outcomes for all. The company also announced a partnership with Mansfield Building to launch an open banking platform to make it easier for mortgage applicants to provide their bank statements online.

EQ Bank has partnered with fellow FDATA member Flinks, a leader in open banking, to provide EQ Bank customers with the ability to share their financial data securely with third-party fintech applications of their choosing. This partnership, and the integration of Flinks Outbound, an open banking environment, provides EQ Bank with the framework to quickly deliver flexible open banking capabilities and easily launch and operate new API data sharing methods while providing the bank with critical new data management capabilities. EQ customers who provide explicit consent will have the visibility into what data are they sharing, with whom, and for how long.

Envestnet Yodlee recently published a free white paper entitled, “Unlocking The Benefits Of U.S. Open Banking,” which provided detailed analysis of how the developing ecosystem of new and improved data access methods between financial institutions, data aggregators, application providers, and consumers offers powerful benefits for those who are ready.

Flinks¸ in addition to its new partnership with EQ Bank, announced a new partnership with Ping, an enterprise identity solutions. This partnership will enabled millions of customers across the U.S. and Canada to link their financial accounts to fintech apps and enjoy new streamlined banking experiences in a safe and compliant way. The new partnership also will help ensure Flinks’ open banking API technology is secure and scalable, allowing hundreds of third-party financial apps to gain instant access to user-permissioned data fast and simply. The customer experience will be seamless, with Flinks handling the user authentication and access on the front end and Ping Identity’s solutions working invisibly on the back end. The partnership enabled Flinks to build and launch its new solution within six months.

Fiserv and fellow FDATA Member MX are joint recipients of the Tearsheet 2022 Data Innovation Award. This award underscores the companies’ roles as leaders in open finance. Fiserv and MX were recognized for enabling consumers to securely and reliably share financial data with their favorite apps or services through direct connections, eliminating the need to share personal credentials such as usernames and passwords with third parties. The award was presented as part of Tearsheet’s DataDay Awards 2022, which recognize and celebrate the best data products, services, and brands powering the modern financial system.

MX has expanded its reach into open banking through partnerships with Sionic Mobile Corp., a provider of consumer-to-business payments technology, and FuturePay Inc., a provider of digital revolving credit solutions for e-commerce merchants and their customers. Sionic is embedding MX’s instant account-verification and account-aggregation services into its consumer microsite and mobile software development kit. FuturePay will integrate MX’s instant account-verification and data-cleansing apps with FuturePay’s MYTab digital revolving credit platform for online merchants, which allows them to offer online shoppers a credit line for making purchases with any merchant in the FuturePay network.

Plaid’s Payment Initiation Service (PIS), an API for real-time payments via Open Banking, received the Highly Commended recognition from FinTech Futures as a Best Real-Time Payments Solution.

Salt Edge published a new blog post entitled, “Three Practical Ways For Any Business To Leverage Open Banking,” which explained the many ways that granting access to businesses bank account data can be leveraged to reduce costs, increase automation, and create seamless experiences for users.

Vopay announced a partnership with Canadian property management software provider Plexflow to create a combined technology that will allow property managers to focus on the service they provide rather than be bogged down by manual processes. With VoPay’s payment technology in place, property managers can verify available funds, facilitate instant rent collection, and streamline the onboarding process for tenants. By managing all payment-related operations from a single portal instead of many, cash flow management, and reconciliation will become a much more fluid process.

Trustly published a new blog post entitled, “How Open Banking Meets The Needs Of The Creator Economy.” The blog post explained how open banking offers more freedom and transparency for individuals no matter the source of income, which is perfect for content creators, small entrepreneurs, and artists, who often need access to different services. They’ve also announced a new partnership with Gr4vy that will allow its online merchants to add Trustly as an Open Banking payment option at checkout.

Xero released the beta version of a new bank statement extraction feature in Hubdoc that will be gradually rolled out over the next few weeks in the United States and Canada. This new beta feature exports transaction data from PDF statements of supported banks into a pre-formatted CSV file that allows manual upload into Xero or QuickBooks Online. It will support debit and credit statements from Royal Bank of Canada, TD Canada Trust, and Chase Bank. To work around bank data access issues in the US and Canada, this feature will only work with digital PDFs downloaded directly from a bank account statement.

Events and Submission Deadlines

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America July 2022 Newsletter

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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