FOREX Magazine

Steve Smith, co-chair of FDX
and CEO of the data
aggregator Finicity,
compares the new group to
the Bluetooth Special Interest
Group, which drove the
creation of the short-range
wireless communication
standard.
“Twenty years ago, five
companies came together
to talk about how devices
might connect seamlessly
and in short range,” he said.
“Had that not taken place,
we wouldn’t be looking at
the extraordinary amount of
innovation that’s taken
place; we all just take
Bluetooth for granted
today.”
Today the Bluetooth group
has 30,000 members, he
noted.
“In the financial services
industry, we have had fits
and starts,” he said. “There
haven’t been great,
concrete standards for how
this data can be used to
benefit the customer in
removing friction from the
lending process or providing
new great insights from
products and services
rendered by financial
institutions themselves or by
vendors.”
The new group’s board
members come from BofA,
BB&T, Capital One, Charles
Schwab, Citigroup, Experian,
Fannie Mae, Fidelity
Investments, Finicity, FS-ISAC,
Intuit, JPMorgan, PNC Bank,
Quicken Loans, the Securities
Industry and Financial
Markets Association, TD Bank,
TCH, USAA, U.S. Bank, Wells
Fargo, Xero and Yodlee.
Others are on the wait list,
according to Fakhraie.
“The board decided to
launch first and then start
evangelizing and increasing
adoption,” Fakhraie said.
“We know more companies
are interested and will be
joining.”
The group is a subsidiary of
the Financial Services
Information Sharing and
Analysis Center.
The Financial Data Exchange
is funded and supported by
banks, fintechs and data
aggregators. The board
members have an annual
financial commitment,
members pay a fee based
on the size of the
organization.
Taking on data disputes
The group will address some
of the challenges that arise in
trying to share consumers’
financial data.
One issue is the practice of
screen scraping, where third
parties use consumers’ login
information to access
accounts and “scrape”
account data. Banks would
like to eradicate this
practice.
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