The move is driven by The Clearing House, which is owned by 25 of the US' largest lenders.
In Brief
- The group, the oldest banking association in the US - is pushing contract terms to allow financial-technology startups quicker access to consumer financial data.
- The working template for those terms is intended to shorten a process that can take a year or longer to complete.
- The move has attracted criticism from FinTech, Plaid Inc. which objects to some of the new set up's language, including the fact that it allows banks to block certain apps.
What this means
Lenders have long been working on ways to share data to end “screen scraping,” a process which often requires consumers to give their user names and passwords to share financial details with outside apps. Many major banks argue that scraping gives consumers little control over how much data is collected and how it’s used.
