#open banking

14 11, 2024

FedFin Assessment: The Complex Outlook for Consumer-Finance Regulation

Eliza Allen2024-11-14T15:45:08-05:00November 14th, 2024|The Vault|

As with merger policy (see forthcoming FedFin report), consumer-finance regulation will be crafted in the Trump Administration by complex pull-backs of current, progressive standards and pull-forward of populist goals which often parallel progressive ones. This is most clearly the case where powerful business lobbies such as merchants wield the greatest force (e.g., interchange fees), but will also be evident in consumer-privacy, tech-platform, credit-card, and “relationship-banking” efforts. This report assesses these and other issues under the CFPB’s jurisdiction, looking also at the outlook for the agency itself as Republicans gain Congressional control, allowing them to press for structural change to this controversial agency…

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.

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6 11, 2024

FedFin Assessment: Trump II Financial-Policy Outlook

Arezou Rafikian2024-11-06T10:55:18-05:00November 6th, 2024|The Vault|

Given the likelihood of a Trump win, we turn in this report to our outlook for federal financial policy in a very different Administration than the one that has set it for the last four years. We will refine this outlook when final tallies determine Congressional control, but slim margins will dog both parties and thus significantly complicate the legislative outlook. Congress, like the White House, will also be preoccupied with nomination battles, immigration, geopolitical risk, and acute fiscal-policy challenges in areas such as the new president’s budget, planned tax breaks, and tariffs.

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.

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30 10, 2023

Karen Petrou: How to Prevent Open Banking From Turning Into the Wild West

Eliza Allen2023-11-13T15:44:38-05:00October 30th, 2023|The Vault|

There are so many rules coming from so many directions at U.S. financial institutions that spotting key strategic challenges or opportunities is harder than ever. That more and more of these rules are longer than 1,000 pages makes C-suite impact considerations still harder to highlight. In the midst of this morass, one proposal from the CFPB on consumer-data rights may be easy to overlook, but this seemingly-petite 299-page rule is at least as consequential as the thousands of capital and CRA pages getting all the not-so-love.

Why? Quite simply, consumer data are the currency of commerce in general and retail finance in particular. The stratospheric ascent of data-driven companies such as Amazon are indisputable proof that competitors who control data quickly control consumers, mobilizing ever more powerful network effects that then crush all but the most nuanced niche providers. The CFPB is right that banks no more deserve exclusive provenance over consumer data than tech-platform companies, but requiring banks to give these data away as the Bureau plans means the crown jewels of each retail franchise are now out on the shop counter for free.

Companies far better able to make astute use of these data than all but a few banks will quickly find ways to persuade consumers to give personal information to them unless the final data rights standard has considerably more consumer protection built in than the proposal. I know it sounds odd to say that a CFPB proposal is light on consumer protections, but so it …

4 11, 2022

FedFin: Consumer Data Rights

Arezou Rafikian2022-11-04T15:47:45-04:00November 4th, 2022|The Vault|

Beginning a long-awaited rulemaking process on the extent to which consumers have rights to their own data and how these rights may be exercised, the CFPB is seeking views on an array of ideas and questions to guide future action. This outline is essentially an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) in which the Bureau outlines its initial thinking on key questions such as the extent to which screen-scraping should be allowed, whether new security standards are needed, and when consumers are at risk…

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.…