White Paper - Monetizing Consumer Financial Data
- Bryan Hahn
- Aug 22
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 25
JP Morgan recently announcing its intention on charging fees to fintechs accessing its customer's financial data with other banks considering the move as well has sparked discussion as to the impact (and the merits) of commercializing personal financial data. Off the back of this I’ve seen announcements of solutions for providing banks with the ability to commercialize Open Finance data. As a sidenote, we’ve been offering this as part of our Open Finance Gateway for over 5 years now…. just saying 😊
Back to the point… 17 years of licensing financial data and intellectual property (and some common sense) have taught me that either ownership or grant of license for the purpose of commercialization is a requirement for such. With respect to personal financial data regulations/legislation have already addressed certain aspects but there still seem to be some misconceptions, the most common being that consumers own their financial data. As basis for discussion, please see our white paper comparing Open Banking data in the UK/Europe with the United States. The full white paper can be viewed via link below.
Other industries e.g. the Streaming Industry as well as Financial Market Data industry have grown into billion dollar franchises licensing data and intellectual property but with respect to personal data there has been surprisingly little discussion around this topic especially as it’s part of the lawsuit challenging the Personal Financial Data Rights (PFDR) rule under section 1033 and included in the request for comments which were just released as part of the accelerated rulemaking process which the CFPB proposed as conditions for the current stay in the lawsuit. The questions concerning fees are covered under Defrayment of Costs in Exercising Rights Under Section 1033, Questions 9-17, and Privacy Concerns in the Exercise of Section 1033 Right, Questions 31-34. The CFPB is giving 60 days for responses. Below a link to the document; Personal Financial Data Rights Reconsideration
What are your thoughts? Input on any of the below from Legal/Compliance, Commercial, Product, and Finance perspectives are welcome and appreciated!
- Views on ownership and/or commercialization of personal financial data?
- Impact if allowed under a new/revised rule?
- Will potential new revenue streams support innovation or hurt it?
- Which data should be allowed for commercialization?
- What sort of guardrails should be in place?
- How might AI fit into all of this?
Financial Institutions and fintechs have proven to be creative when it comes to commercialization and adapting to regulation. In order to complete the picture we should also consider ability to commercialize the “pipes” meaning the infrastructure, in lieu of placing fees on the data itself but that’s another discussion to be addressed in a subsequent post.
