North America-Newsletters

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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

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

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

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

Member News & Activity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monthly FDATA Member Spotlight: Morningstar ByAllAccounts

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

Events and Submission Deadlines

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FDATA North America May 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 Responds to CFPB Request for Information (RFI) on ‘Junk Fees’. FDATA used this opportunity to once again urge the CFPB to prioritize an open banking rulemaking under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act, an action which would create a long-overdue consumer financial data right in the United States. The letter states that FDATA believes the most practical remedy to reducing predatory fees in the financial ecosystem is to implement an open finance regime in the United States, stressing that “the center of such a framework must be an unambiguous and legally binding customer financial data right, which would ensure that consumers and small businesses could easily shop for financial services and products among scores of potential providers in an open, transparent marketplace.” Click here to read FDATA’s full submission.

FDATA and Paytechs of Canada Release Landmark Survey on Canadian Consumer and Small Business Attitudes Toward Financial Sector, Fintech and Open Banking. This groundbreaking poll found that more than half of Canadians reported feeling stress when interacting with Canada’s financial services sector and believe they would benefit from increased competition and transparency in the financial services market. The findings are derived from two surveys conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights of 2000 randomly-selected Canadian adults and 600 small business owners. The full report is available here.

Member News & Activity

Basis Theory has rolled out its new privacy tool called sendsecure.ly, which ensures passwords, API credentials, card numbers, etc. don’t exist in perpetuity within friends’, families, and coworkers’ emails, SMS messengers, or chat apps. Instead, the web app allows anyone to share their sensitive data as a single-use undecipherable link that can be privately shared with anyone else. Sendsecure.ly is a Next.js application written using TypeScript and built upon the Basis Theory platform. All interactions with the Basis Theory API are performed using the JavaScript SDK, and executed within the Next.js backend API.

Codat published a blog post explaining in detail how open banking can allow for the integration of banking and accounting data to empower better credit access for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) who may otherwise face difficultly getting loan applications approved. The blog also covers what banking and accounting data have to offer on their own, how they can work together to paint a fuller, more accurate picture of SMB finances, and how the best APIs on the market enable modern lenders to access and analyze both seamlessly.

Envestnet Yodlee put together an on-demand webinar featuring Head of International Markets Jason O’Shaughnessy, exploring how open banking and open finance provide timely, secure, and direct access to banking, investment accounts, and pension data.

Flinks published a blog post clearly laying out the basics of open banking, describing several key reasons it should be adopted, listing dominant use cases, and digging deeper into the current state of open banking in North America.

Fiserv announced a new partnership with Equifax to collaborate on new offerings that deliver a more holistic picture of businesses and their data and enable financial institutions and businesses of all sizes to embrace the power of real-time data insights. “Equifax and Fiserv have a shared vision for how timely, detailed data can transform the financial services ecosystem, helping to better inform decision makers with the right knowledge at the right time,” said Frank Bisignano, Fiserv President and Chief Executive Officer. “Together we will empower financial institutions and businesses to operate in new ways as they benefit from data-enabled insights.”

Interac President and CEO Mark O’Connell delivered a virtual keynote address at the Empire Club entitled “Canada’s Digital Economy: Creating a Shared Vision in a Fragmented Word”, explaining how Canadian businesses and governments can build trust and meet the needs of the digital economy.

Morningstar’s ByAllAccounts was recently featured on the WealthTech Today podcast. Hear from Don McHenry, Senior Product Manager at Morningstar ByAllAccounts, as he covers trends in data aggregation. Topics covered include how data aggregation powers open banking, how data is enriched to support specific client use cases, some tips on selecting a data aggregation vendor, and much more.

MX Interim President and CEO Shane Evans published a blog post sharing why MX sees open finance as the ‘great amplifier’ to achieving its mission. Shane sees a world where we talk about our financial challenges and find solutions to help everyone in society to become financially strong. Be sure to watch the full replay of Shane’s keynote from MX FinTech Festival and watch for other session recaps on the MX blog.

Plaid will be hosting the world’s leading developers, innovators, and business leaders on May 19 for Plaid Forum, an immersive, one-day hybrid experience designed to empower and build the future of digital finance. Featuring keynotes, interactive workshops, and specialized learning tracks, this event will be online and in-person in San Francisco, and free for everyone.

Salt Edge celebrated its 9th birthday on April 19th and was featured in a blog post at Innovate Finance entitled “9 Facts about Salt Edge on its 9th year anniversary.” They also announced a new strategic partnership with FintechOS to offer financial institutions, banks, and electronic money institutions (EMIs) already using FintechOS’ high productivity fintech infrastructure (HPFI) the ability to improve their compliance with PSD2, as well as other global Open Banking standards.

Trustly was awarded the 2022 Banking Fintech of the Year award for Retail Payments by Aite-Novarica. In collaboration with the Merchant Advisory Group, Trustly published new research around how Open Banking Payments can help merchants mitigate their payment challenges deriving from COVID-19. The company also published a blog post about the powerful combination of Open Banking and Online Gaming.

Vopay published a blog post explaining Variable Recurring Payments and how its development will follow once open banking arrives in Canada.

Monthly FDATA Member Spotlight: Xero

FDATA North America member Xero is a cloud-based accounting software platform for small businesses with more than 3 million subscribers globally. This Member Spotlight interview features Faye Pang, Xero’s Country Manager for Canada.

Events and Submission Deadlines

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FDATA North America April 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 NA News

FDATA and Paytechs of Canada Release Landmark Survey on Canadian Consumer and Small Business Attitudes Toward Financial Sector, Fintech and Open Banking. This joint survey found that more than half of Canadians reported feeling stress when interacting with Canada’s financial services sector and believe they would benefit from increased competition and transparency in the financial services market. The findings indicate this is especially true among women, young people, and new Canadians. Among the biggest sources of dissatisfaction are high fees and a lack of choice. The findings are derived from two surveys conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights of 2000 randomly-selected Canadian adults and 600 small business owners. The full report is available here.

FDATA North America Applauds Choice for Canadian Open Banking Lead. In its August 2021 report, the Canadian Minister of Finance’s Advisory Committee on Open Banking recommended the appointment of an Open Banking Lead who would report to the Associate Minister of Finance Canada as a critical first step in the delivery of open banking in Canada. The Department of Finance announced on March 22 that Abraham Tachjian would serve in this role. In a statement applauding this development, Executive Director Steve Boms said: “Today represents an important step forward in Canada’s efforts to deliver open banking by 2023. We are encouraged by this action and look forward to working with Open Banking lead Abraham Tachjian to ensure a competitive, customer-centric open banking ecosystem in Canada that boosts financial access and inclusion. Click here to read FDATA’s full response.

Member News & Activity

Basis Theory published a blog post explaining Robotic Process Automation, or RPA. This is a rapidly evolving space expected to grow at more than 32 percent a year through 2028. By combining intelligent software robotics with easy-to-use no-code interfaces, a handful of tightly designed RPA workflows can do the job of an entire department by navigating to websites, filling out forms, and clicking buttons without human intervention. It promises to disrupt back-of-house operations at companies in every industry. They also published a blog post by Brian Gonzalez explaining tokenization and how it works to secure consumer financial data.

BillGO published a white paper entitled “The State of Play for Women and Paying Bills,” which  draws on a wide variety of data from an array of sources to assemble a picture of the role U.S. women play in the economy, the job market and the household. As the research bears out, both women and men have grown accustomed to women managing bills and serving as “household CFOs” — even while they continue to be shortchanged in their attempt to attain financial well-being.

Codat’s CEO and Founder Peter Lord published an article in Finextra explaining why the U.S. SBA’s direct lending proposal is well-intentioned but flawed. A current proposal, included in the Build Back Better Act, includes a $1.9 billion direct loan program to be managed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). It would sit under the current 7(a) program and be distributed over the next 10 years.

Envestnet Yodlee published an eBook entitled “Turn Retail Banking Disruption Into Opportunity” which provides tips on how can banks reinvent themselves and their digital strategies in order to stay relevant. They also recently released an on-demand webinar entitled “Transforming Finance Through Open Banking APIs” which features Envestnet’s Head of Developer Experience Seb Taveau. The speakers discuss how the flexibility and easy integration of APIs are fueling the growth of embedded finance and digital banking, use cases for open APIs that drive new value creation for banks and FinTech firms, ways open APIs are driving embedded finance, and how banking products are changing to an API-first model.

EQ Bank was named best bank in Canada for savings and joint accounts by Money Sense, which said that “If you’re looking for safety and security, a great rate and no volatility, an EQ Bank Savings Plus Account is the best option.”

Experian announced the integration of its PowerCurve® and CrossCoreTM platforms into Black Opal’s credit decisioning process, which will be used on the new Black Opal credit card. Black Opal is dedicated to helping U.S. immigrants build credit so they can integrate into society and improve their financial health. Experian’s capabilities will enable Black Opal to make real-time credit decisions and manage identity verification and fraud prevention.

Fiserv announced the completion of its acquisition of SaaS platform Finxact.“Together with Finxact, we are accelerating the ability for fintechs and financial institutions to deliver differentiated digital banking experiences to their customers,” said Frank Bisignano, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fiserv. “We welcome the Finxact team to Fiserv as we focus on our shared commitment of innovating to create value for our clients.” Finxact’s  solution is a SaaS platform engineered to support the scale and regulatory requirements of the largest U.S.-based financial institutions. Its cloud-native banking system provides 100% accessibility to all data and functions via a robust set of modern APIs, empowering banks and their partners to rapidly deliver new experiences by creating products on demand and integrating new services as needed.

MX Director of Policy Lexi Hall published a blog post explaining what the recent White House Executive Order on cryptocurrencies means for open finance.

Plaid was named in Fast Company’s “10 Most Innovative Security Companies” list for 2022, for “showing people whom they’re sharing their financial data with.” Fast Company noted that more than 6,000 companies rely on Plaid and its unified banking API to connect their apps seamlessly and securely with over 11,000 financial institutions in the United States, Canada, the U.K., and Europe, making it the data transfer network that undergirds much of the fintech market.

Questrade was ranked #1 in service experience amongst Canadian online brokerages by Surviscor for the second year in a row, as measured by the 2021 Surviscor Online Brokerage Service Level Experience review.

Salt Edge Growth Officer Alina Beleuta joined an episode of Open Banking Expo TV, in association with Scott Wilson, VP of commercial at Mambu, to discuss what’s in store for open banking and open finance this year. They analyze some of the key findings from Mambu’s 2022 Partners Predictions Report around customer experience, embedded finance and the ‘platformisation’ of banking, and consider what these mean for banks and fintechs.

Trustly VP of Banking Partnerships, Eric Foust, joined the U.S. Faster Payment Council’s Off the Rails podcast to discuss how Open Banking and faster payments are benefiting merchants.

Vopay published a post on Medium explaining B2B payments and upcoming trends and innovations in this space.

Xero announced new collaborations with the Association of Latino Professionals For America (ALPFA), the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) and Negozee to deepen its connections with the U.S. Hispanic community. By teaming up with ALPFA, the first national Latino professional association in the US, Xero hopes to drive more awareness of Xero as a leading cloud accounting platform and an employer of choice. Xero will also support ALPFA by sponsoring scholarships, promoting open positions at Xero and co-marketing opportunities.

Monthly FDATA Member Spotlight: MX

FDATA member MX has been a leader in the open banking movement in North America. In this video spotlight, Chief Advocacy Officer Jane Barratt explains how the company has been on the front lines of promoting open baking to the public and policymakers:

Events and Submission Deadlines

  • April 11: Extended Deadline for Comments to CFPB RFI on ‘Junk Fees’
  • April 26: TechCrunch Virtual Event: Data and the Culture Transformation
  • April 26-28: Payments Canada Summit
  • May 1-4: NachaOnline’s Smarter Faster Payments Conference
  • May 19: Plaid Forum 2022
  • May 20: Deadline to comment on the Federal Reserve’s discussion paper on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)
  • May 23: Deadline to comment on CIO Strategy Council’s “customer experience” draft open finance standard
by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America March 2022 Newsletter

Welcome to FDATA North America’s brand-new 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’ll also include a list of upcoming industry events, and coverage of any market developments that impact fintech innovators.

FDATA NA News

February 7: FDATA North America Submits Comments to OSFI’s Consultation on Technology and Cyber Risk Management. Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) held a public consultation on its Draft Guidance B-13: Technology and Cyber Risk Management. In our response, we underscored the difference between third-party partners to banks and customer-selected use cases and discussed the interplay between B-13 and the development of open banking in Canada, particularly the importance of harmonization of efforts between the Department of Finance’s open banking work and OSFI’s approach to third-party cybersecurity risk. We also urged OSFI to consider all the work that’s already been undertaken on this issue by the Department of Finance, and urged it to clearly distinguish its authority and responsibilities in the third-party marketplace from those of the Department of Finance.

February 22: FDATA Submits Comments to Canadian Department of Finance in Response to 2022 Budget Consultation: We sent a letter to the Canadian Department of Finance, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Associate Minister Randy Boissonnault as part of the Canadian government’s 2022 Pre-Budget consultation. With the resumption of Parliament, and Budget 2022 planning well underway, our letter urged the Department to fully implement all phases of the Advisory Committee on Open Banking’s recommendations, which lay out a thoughtful, well-researched approach to building a “made in Canada” open finance system that puts consumers and small businesses at the center of a more competitive financial marketplace.

March 3: FDATA Responds to NIST Open Banking Report. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an entity within the US Department of Commerce, recently published draft report NISTIR 8389, “Cybersecurity Considerations for Open Banking Technology and Emerging Standards.” FDATA NA’s analysis found several shortcomings in this paper, including incomplete definitions of open banking and proprietary data; failure to articulate the central role of regulatory leadership in well-implemented open banking frameworks; and incomplete discussion of the technological realities under which open banking solutions are currently delivered in the United States and in other jurisdictions across the globe. In our letter, we strongly and specifically described each of these concerns and encouraged NIST to undertake significant revisions.

Member News & Activity

BillGO recently published an Ebook entitled “The Battle for Bill Pay,” which provides insights into what consumers want when managing their bills and subscriptions and steps the financial services can take to meet the needs of their customers.  This publication draws from nearly two years of data BillGO collected in exclusive studies commissioned to develop a comprehensive picture of consumer bill pay patterns and preferences. Their 2020 research revealed more than three-quarters of consumers paid their online bills directly to biller websites, and in Q3 2021 the number of consumers paying billers directly dropped to about 66 percent.  CEO and Co-founder Dan Holt noted that this trend confirms fintechs like BillGO are making headway in helping the industry convert to modern bill pay.

Codat’s Head of Communications Gabriel Macsweeney joined the Open Finance podcast to explain Codat’s universal API for small business data, and discuss its recently published report making the case for Open Finance. The company also published a new report “Open for Business: The case for a new approach to Open Finance that works for SMBs.” This report revealed the strong appetite among Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) for the benefits of Open Finance, urges new regulation to prioritize the right data, and makes the case for a fresh approach to Open Finance that will benefit SMBs and their financial service providers and fuel economic growth.

EQ Bank announced that it is acquiring a majority interest in Concentra Bank.  President and CEO Andrew Moor said: “Acquiring Concentra strengthens Equitable’s position as Canada’s Challenger Bank by adding scale, talent, customer and partner relationships that will allow us to better serve our purpose of driving change in Canadian banking that enriches people’s lives.”

Experian is launching a buy-now-pay-later credit bureau to allow providers to furnish data on all types of point-of-sale products — enabling a comprehensive view of consumer payments, including the number of outstanding BNPL loans, total loan amounts and payment status. Experian also recently launched an app-based program called Experian Go aimed at helping people without credit or very little credit take the first step towards creating a credit report and credit score.

Fiserv announced the acquisition of software firm Finxact, developer of cloud-native banking solutions and APIs. Fiserv was an early investor in Finxact and will acquire the remaining ownership interest for approximately $650 million. The company also recently announced a partnership with shipping logistics company Pitney Bowes to develop a proprietary banking platform.

Intuit CEO @sasan_goodarzi joined Yahoo Finance to discuss earnings, growth outlook, the 2022 tax season, and the company’s acquisitions of MailChimp and Credit Karma. The company also just announced financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2022, noting that its Organic Online Ecosystem revenue grew by 37 Percent.

M Science was recognized at the 2022 @HFM_Global US Technology Awards as “Best Alternative Data Provider,” for the fourth consecutive year.

MX announced a new partnership with Rize to provide fintechs and neobanks with embedded finance, which will give existing and potential clients access to Rize’s banking infrastructure and compliance program, as well as the ability to securely link bank accounts from over 16,000 financial institutions and fintechs through MX’s secure data connectivity network. They also announced that financial technology and customer experience platform Deposits.com has chosen MX for account linking, personal financial management, insights, and embedded financial wellness products. This partnership will level the playing field for community banks, credit unions, and community developers seeking financial innovation and inclusion.

Plaid has put together a video featuring CEO Zach Perett, Head of Financial Access Ginger Baker , and Global Policy Head John Pitts discussing their top fintech industry predictions for the upcoming year. They also just published the first of a new monthly blog series, PSD2morrow, where Plaid expert Martijn Bos examines the ongoing PSD2 review, what ecosystem players like Plaid need from it, and where policymakers could improve regulations to promote more open banking innovation.

Salt Edge has joined with Fairo, an innovative financial app for freelancers, to enable Fairo customers to keep track of their business banking transactions in the app and to automate the management of administrative tasks. As a global bank data integration specialist, Salt Edge will offer best-in-class security solutions to protect the data of Fairo customers.

Trustly announced the introduction of a new Open Banking-based deferred settlement product, FlexPay by Trustly. The company also recently partnered with Vroom Delivery to introduce an Open Banking Payments solution for their online convenience stores’ consumers. Additionally, Trustly executives, Eric Foust, VP of Banking Partnerships, Ross McFerrin, VP of Enterprise Growth, and Kathryn McCall, Chief Legal Officer, participated in the Open Banking series of the Leaders in Payments podcast.

Validify has released a new underwriting product called the “FI Risk Index,” which will help financial service businesses reduce risk when purchasing leads, removing the likelihood of default. This real-time data service was designed to quickly detect consumers associated with the highest-risk financial institutions and bad bank accounts.

Wealthica, the leading financial data platform in Canada has been named as FinTech Leader of the Year by Finance et Investissement, the preeminent source of information in Quebec for professionals in the financial services sector. Wealthica now serves over 50,000 users, aggregating over 200 institutions and $18 billion dollars worth of assets. Wealthica also recently launched the Vezgo API to aggregate cryptocurrency, integrating a wide range of crypto institutions.

Monthly FDATA Member Spotlight

Xero is a cloud-based accounting software platform for small businesses with more than 3 million subscribers and over 1,000 connected apps and more than 300 connections to banks and financial service providers.

With apps that support everything from inventory and logistics to point of sale and project management, the Xero App Marketplace empowers small businesses to build their own toolkit to run all aspects of their business and have them all work together seamlessly.

Events and Submission Deadlines
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