CFSI Proposes Data Sharing Guidelines

The Center For Financial Services Innovation has released a framework it says is designed to spur safe data sharing between banks, fintechs and third-party data aggregators.

In its guidelines, CFSI said the industry needs to take into account five key principles to enable more secure and innovate data sharing. The principles are: allow consumers to view their financial information in the third-party of their choice; make data consistent, accurate and complete; give consumers the ability to allow their data to be shared only when they give explicit access; ensure that data sharing follows all legal requirements; and use only the data that is minimally required and that it stored for the minimum amount of time.

The guidelines come at a time when the issue of screen scraping has caused consternation between banks and third-part data aggregators, such as personal financial management firms like Mint. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray also weighed in on this topic during a keynote speech on Sunday  at the Money2020 conference in Las Vegas. In his remarks, Cordray said he believes consumers should be able to share financial information with trusted third-party providers that they authorize to see it.

"We believe consumers should be able to access this information and give their permission for third-party companies to access this information as well," he said, adding that "consumers should be able to access information maintained by a financial provider about the consumer's use of their products. Congress also specified that the information shall be made available in an electronic form usable by consumers."