Financial Data and Technology Association of North America

FDATA North America Outlines “Essential Ingredients” for Industry-Led Open Banking Work Groups

Contact: Kerrie Rushton, (202) 365-6338, [email protected]

November 19, 2019, Washington, DC – The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) of North America today announced the release of a white paper that provides guidance to United States and Canadian standards-creation bodies and policymakers as they seek to establish industry-led working groups that would begin to design voluntary standards around open banking regimes in their respective countries.

“As a chapter of the global organization that has been responsible for informing the creation and design of open banking regimes around the world, we believe these are the ingredients for any well-designed standards group,” said FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms. “For the benefit of consumers and small businesses – the ultimate end users of the financial services ecosystem – and to maintain the competitiveness of their respective economies, it is essential that any standards bodies created in the United States and Canada have representation from all stakeholders in the financial services and financial technology sectors and focus their work on the key issues the private sector can address.”

The white paper addresses the scope, composition, and essential subcommittees for proposed industry-led working groups, and advises that government representatives must guide the groups “to encourage participants to look beyond commercial interests and keep at the center of the body’s work the consumer’s and small business’ best interests at all times.”

FDATA North America also outlines several of the questions these working groups must answer. These include queries about technology, permissioning, accountability and liability, legal and regulatory issues, governance, and oversight.

FDATA North America Essential Ingredients of an Open Banking Working Group

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. Existing FDATA North America members include: The Alliance for Innovative Regulation, Betterment, Envestnet Yodlee, Flinks, Intuit, Kabbage, Lendified, Mogo, Morningstsar, M Science, MX, Questrade, Quicken Loans, Petal, Plaid, The ID Co., TransUnion, Trustly, VoPay, Wealthica and others.