Data Privacy

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America Submits Comments to US House Consumer Protection Subcommittee on the Future of Banking

September 29, 2021, Washington, DC – Today, FDATA North America submitted a letter for the record for the U.S. House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions hearing “The Future of Banking: How Consolidation, Nonbank Competition, and Technology are Reshaping the Banking System.” The letter outlines FDATA North America’s mission to advocate for a financial ecosystem in which the end user has complete utility of their financial data.

Throughout the letter, FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms highlighted the steps necessary for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to promulgate, by rule, a customer financial data right that will spur greater financial services innovation and competition as well as improve consumer financial access and inclusion and the importance of the subcommittee in . “As the CFPB works to promulgate a proposed rule under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act to improve competition in the financial services system, we hope that the subcommittee will continue to examine this vitally important space and encourage the Bureau to use its statutory authority to create a customer-centric, safe, competitive, and secure open finance system in the United States,” Boms stated.

To accomplish the goal of leveling the playing field for consumers and small businesses, expanding financial access and inclusion, improving competition in the financial services marketplace and, on a global level, ensuring that the United States’ financial services system remains competitive internationally, FDATA North America outlined its recommendations to the Bureau that it utilize its Section 1033 authority to issue a rule that adheres to five key principles:

  1. Create a legally binding customer financial data right;
  2. Define and clear enumerate the limited circumstances in which custodians of financial data may override customer consent;
  3. Supervise financial data aggregation firms;
  4. Coordinate with the prudential regulators on Regulation E modernization; and
  5. Recognize the need to permit current and legacy technology

Boms noted that the combination of these principles “would provide consumers and small businesses with safe, secure access to their financial data and, by extension, to critically important financial applications and tools that can meaningfully improve their financial wellbeing.”

Image result for paperclip iconFDATA North America Letter for the Record on the Future of Banking

ABOUT FDATA NORTH AMERICA
FDATA was heavily involved in the UK Open Banking Working Group in 2015. In 2016, the working group’s output was published by Her Majesty’s Treasury as the Open Banking Standard. FDATA North America was founded in early 2018. Its members collectively provide tens of millions of consumers in Canada, the United States, and Mexico with aggregation-based tools to better manage their finances.

Members include air (Alliance for Innovative Regulation), APImetrics, Basis Theory, Betterment, BillGo, Codat, Direct ID, Envestnet Yodlee, Equitable Bank, Experian, Fiserv, Flinks, Interac, Intuit, Inverite, Kabbage, Mogo, Morningstsar, M Science, MX, Petal, Plaid, Questrade, Rocket Mortgage, SaltEdge, Trustly, ValidiFI, VoPay, Wealthica, Xero, and others.

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America Submits Comments to House Fintech Task Force on Data Access

September 20, 2021, Washington, DC – Today, FDATA North America submitted a letter for the record for the U.S. House Financial Services Committee’s Task Force on Financial Technology’s hearing “Preserving the Right of Consumers to Access Personal Financial Data.” The letter outlines FDATA North America’s mission to advocate for a financial ecosystem in which the end user has complete utility of their financial data.

Throughout the letter, FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms discussed the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) utilizing the authority vested in it under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to promulgate, by rule, a consumer financial data right that will spur greater financial access and inclusion. “FDATA North America has been encouraged by two important developments” that advance Section 1033, including:

  1. The issuance of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking by the [Consumer Financial Protection] Bureau (CFPB) pertaining to consumer access to financial records late last year; and
  2. Inclusion in President Joe Biden’s July 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy language that encourages the CFPB  to consider “commencing or continuing a rulemaking under section 1033 to facilitate the portability

Promulgation of Section 1033, Boms stated, comes at a critical moment whereby countries around the world are quickly embracing the notion that the customer should be in control of their own financial data. “The status quo, under which financial institutions continuously exercise control over their customers’ data, provides little benefit to the consumer or small business,” Boms noted. Additionally, innovation and competition in the financial services marketplace are stifled under the current environment that is controlled by commercial interests, prohibits the move to a modernized customer-centric, safe and secure open finance system in the United States.

Image result for paperclip iconFDATA North America Letter for the Record on Data Access

ABOUT FDATA NORTH AMERICA
FDATA was heavily involved in the UK Open Banking Working Group in 2015. In 2016, the working group’s output was published by Her Majesty’s Treasury as the Open Banking Standard. FDATA North America was founded in early 2018. Its members collectively provide tens of millions of consumers in Canada, the United States, and Mexico with aggregation-based tools to better manage their finances.

Members include air (Alliance for Innovative Regulation), APImetrics, Basis Theory, Betterment, BillGo, Codat, Direct ID, Envestnet Yodlee, Equitable Bank, Experian, Fiserv, Flinks, Interac, Intuit, Inverite, Kabbage, Mogo, Morningstsar, M Science, MX, Petal, Plaid, Questrade, Rocket Mortgage, SaltEdge, Trustly, ValidiFI, VoPay, Wealthica, Xero, and others.

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

Member Spotlight: Flinks

 

Founded in 2016, Flinks is a Montreal-based company that empowers businesses to provide better financial services to consumers and small businesses. Data security and privacy are among the company’s very top priorities.

By virtue of its information security program, Flinks invests heavily in state-of-the-art security measures and approaches its operations with a “privacy by design” mindset. These measures make the Flinks environment extremely robust from a data protection standpoint. And while Canada waits for open banking to specifically regulate the sharing of financial data, Flinks operates under and is compliant with the relevant applicable privacy laws, including PIPEDA, Canada’s federal privacy and data protection law.

All of the data handled by Flinks is collected, used and shared per the consumer’s direction, following consent protocols that are explicit and easy to understand. Consumers also have the opportunity to request Flinks to correct, update, or erase their personal information in the company’s records. In short, they are in complete control and can withdraw their consent from Flinks to share their data at any time.

Flinks CEO Yves-Gabriel Leboeuf says implementing an open banking framework in Canada will make it even easier to secure consumers’ information and ensure their privacy. As Flinks’ Data Protection Officer Francis Lepine said in this blog post, open banking really is the modernization of existing banking policies. “Sharing bank and financial information has been a common thing to ask consumers for years. All sorts of institutions and businesses rely on void checks, bank statements and tax returns to operate and deliver services,” said Lepine. “Too often, such sensitive information is shared through email — and we’ve heard of even less secure means of communication being used.”

Flinks is enabling a financial system that benefits underserved populations, for example in the area of access to credit. While the traditional credit scoring systems work well for financially active and well-off consumers, they can inhibit companies and individuals that are just getting started, or trying to recover from financial hardship. Credit reports also are slow to capture sudden changes in a person’s financial situation; underwriting models based on financial data can allow for a more real-time, granular picture.

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America Submits Letter to House Financial Services Committee on Consumer Financial Data Privacy

May 21, 2020, Washington, DC – Today, FDATA North America submitted a letter to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on consumer financial data privacy. In the letter, FDATA North America highlights that, as the leading trade association advocating for consumer-permissioned third-party access to financial data globally, the most effective way to ensure data privacy is to give consumers and small businesses the tools to control their financial data. 

Image result for paperclip iconFDATA North America Letter on Consumer Financial Data Privacy

Top