WASHINGTON–In the wake of one major bank’s plan to charge fintechs for accessing customers’ data, a number of trade groups and retailers have joined to press the Trump administration to defend the CFPB’s open banking rule ahead of any debate in the courts.
America’s Credit Unions has responded to the groups’ efforts by urging the administration to reject their entreaties (see related story).
In a letter to the administration, the American Fintech Council and others have argued that big banks are going to stymie financial services innovation by charging fees for data access.
As the CU Daily reported here, JPMorgan Chase said it now plans to impose fees on fintechs for access to its customer bank account data. PNC is mulling such fees and would conceivably follow on the heels of JPMorgan, according to PYMNTS.
Issues Not Yet Resolved
“Two critical considerations that have yet to be resolved — regulations and fees for data access — are, arguably, causing friction between big banks and fintechs,” PYMNTS reported.
In their letter to the president, the groups said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should “ask the court to affirm that consumers, not big banks, control their financial data and have the right to access and share it with companies of their choice at no cost.”
Reversal of Position
The CFPB had enacted rules encouraging open banking—in which consumers own their data and can grant account access to third parties—before the Trump administration reversed that support and has filed briefs in court saying it now believes that the rule is unlawful and should be struck down.
The government is due to file a brief in the lawsuit by July 29 and the letter — signed by the American FinTech Council, the National Retail Federation and others — asks Trump to move against the biggest banks, PYMNTS reported.
‘Aggressive Action’
“These large, incumbent banks are taking aggressive action to unwind the recent progress achieved under your administration by moving to charge exorbitant fees for access to FinTech and crypto apps,” the letter states. “These actions risk debanking Americans from the financial services of the future, all to protect big banks’ competitive advantage.”