RESTON, Va., October 25, 2023 – The Financial Data Exchange (FDX) is pleased with the progress the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is making to implement Dodd-Frank Act Section 1033 with its notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) last week. This is an important milestone for Open Banking/Open Finance and will help resolve some of the ambiguities in the financial services ecosystem. FDX is reviewing the NPRM and will provide appropriate feedback as the CFPB has requested.
FDX is encouraged by the CFPB’s acknowledgment that working with fair, open, and inclusive standards setting organizations is “critical” in “ensuring safe, secure, reliable, and competitive data access.” FDX supports the CFPB’s aims to recognize industry-accepted standards to help the financial industry demonstrate compliance with the use of secure standardized formats to share data.
The NPRM indicates that the CFPB will look to qualified standards setting organizations that, among other things, have the following attributes:
- openness (sources and processes used are open to all interested parties, including consumer and other public interest groups, authorized third parties, data providers, and data aggregators);
- balance (decision-making power is balanced across all interested parties, including consumer and other public interest groups, with no single interest dominating decision-making);
- due process (publicly available policies and procedures, adequate notice of meetings and standards development, and a fair process for resolving conflicts);
- an impartial appeals process;
- consensus (general agreement, not unanimity, reached through fair and open processes);
- transparency (procedures are transparent to participants and publicly available); and
- the body has been recognized by the CFPB within the last three years as an issuer of qualified industry standards
FDX endeavors to mirror in its practices and goals these attributes. FDX intends to seek recognition as a qualified standards setting organization once the rules and procedures are finalized. FDX will seek such recognition in accordance with its consensus and member-led processes.
About FDX
Financial Data Exchange, LLC (FDX) is a non-profit standards setting organization operating in the US and Canada that is dedicated to unifying the financial industry around a common, interoperable, royalty-free standard for secure and convenient consumer and business access to their financial data. FDX empowers users through its commitment to the development, growth, and industry-wide adoption of the FDX API, according to the principles of control, access, transparency, traceability, and security. FDX membership reflects a “full range of relevant interests—consumers and firms, incumbents and challengers, and large and small actors” as referenced in the NPRM. Membership is open to financial institutions, fintech companies, financial data aggregators, consumer advocacy groups, payment networks and other industry stakeholders. All interested parties are encouraged to join. For more information visit www.financialdataexchange.org. The FDX API (which is available for free to nonmembers) already covers more than 65 million consumer accounts, is used in more than 5 billion transactions monthly and continues to be improved upon by all of its members. FDX is an independent subsidiary of FS-ISAC.