The US House Task Force on Financial Technology (Fintech) will convene for a hearing tomorrow (September 21) entitled, “Preserving the Right of Consumers to Access Personal Financial Data.” The Fintech Task Force is part of the House Financial Services Committee.
The hearing will involve the following witnesses.
- Tom Carpenter, Director of Public Affairs, Financial Data Exchange
- Raúl Carrillo, Associate Research Scholar, Yale Law School; Deputy Director, Law and Political Economy Project
- Kelly Thompson Cochran, Deputy Director, FinRegLab
- Chi Chi Wu, Staff Attorney, National Consumer Law Center
- Steve Smith, CEO and co-founder, Finicity
The discussion will include a review as to how financial institutions should be allowed to use or share consumer data between institutions. The use of personal data raises policy questions about consumer protections, financial inclusion, privacy, and competition, and how current laws and regulations currently operate in this space. Open banking or Open Finance facilitates data sharing but these services may need regulatory or legislative clarity as to who controls the data. The hearing memo cites the United Kingdom, a leader in Open Banking, a country that requires large banks to adopt open API banking standards with the aim of increasing competition in financial services as a part of its open banking initiative while ensuring only consumers control access to their information.
The hearing will be live-streamed on September 21, 2021 beginning at 10 AM ET on the Committee website.
Additionally, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions will hold a hearing on September 29th on The Future of Banking: How Consolidation, Nonbank Competition, and Technology are Reshaping the Banking System.
