BPI and TCH Call for Stronger Consumer Financial Data Rules

The Bank Policy Institute (BPI) and The Clearing House Association (TCH) have called for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to strengthen its proposed data protection rules.

The associations argued that the proposed rules do “not go far enough in protecting sensitive consumer financial data or requiring data recipients to comply with these rules”.

The proposals establish how banks, data aggregators and other third parties can safely share consumers’ financial data.

The rules aim to discourage unsafe practices such as screen scraping and provide consumers with more control over how, with whom and for what purpose their data is shared.

The associations called for the CFPB to expand the requirements on consumer authorization and the permissible uses of consumer data to apply to all third parties and data aggregators in the ecosystem, and to all data.

They also called for the proposals to include a ban on screen scraping and establish a clear definition for liability to ensure aggregators and other data recipients are liable for unauthorized transactions or failing to protect consumer data once data is within their possession.

The associations said: “It is critical that consumers’ personal and financial information remains secure when it is shared between financial institutions and third parties and when it is stored outside of the financial institution.

“Our members welcome the competition brought about by innovative financial technology firms and are prepared to support the ability of bank customers to connect their bank accounts to the third-party apps of their choice, but such competition cannot come at the expense of data security.”