On August 1st, 2025, ATR led a coalition letter urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to reject price controls on data-sharing between banks and data aggregators and middlemen. The letter raised concerns with a Biden-era rulemaking on Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act.
The actual statutory provision of section 1033 of Dodd-Frank simply demands that banks make customer data available to consumers themselves. The Biden CFPB ran with the text to undertake an expansive interpretation that would have allowed third-party data aggregators and middlemen to freeload off access to consumer data provided by banks. Under the Trump administration, the CPFB chose to file for a motion for summary judgment in district court litigation acknowledging the rule went far beyond the intended objective of the original statute. The letter commends the CFPB for recognizing the flaws of the Biden rulemaking and asks the CFPB refrain from reviving the price control mechanisms on bank data:
We agree that the Biden open banking rule is unworkable, unlawful, and harmful to consumers and the financial system.
We urge the bureau to reject price controls for consumer data as you revisit the Personal Financial Data Rights rule.
Congress gave bank customers the right to obtain their own data under 12 USC § 5533. Section 1033 of Dodd Frank was not intended to create an open banking regime whereby banks are compelled to share data free of charge to third parties, fintech firms, data aggregators, or any other commercial actors. Subsection 1033(d) directs the Bureau to “prescribe standards to promote the development and use of standardized formats” for consumers, with no reference to any other applicable party. The Biden administration’s interpretation of 1033 grossly oversteps the bounds of the CFPB’s rulemaking jurisdiction.
Had the rule gone into effect, the CFPB would have effectively enacted a price control that unfairly subsidizes third party data aggregators at the expense of banks and credit unions.
Mandating free data access for data aggregators will not empower consumers. It is a backdoor price control that unfairly subsidizes data middlemen at the expense of banks and credit unions by forcing the expropriation of sensitive data. While these brokers provide innovative solutions to their consumer niche, we do not believe that they should enjoy unfair advantages through mandates placed on other businesses.
The letter highlights investments banks have made into APIs and other digital infrastructure platforms to allow for more secure access to consumer data. Improvements in customer data protections warrant third-party data charges to pay for the costs of upgrading and maintaining such platforms. Free access to bank data would effectively force all bank customers, including those who do not utilize third party fintech services, to offset the lost revenue from price controls.
The development and upkeep of APIs for third parties is not without cost. The CFPB acknowledges that the median reported cost of an in-house developer interface per customer is estimated to be $3.37 a year. This cost presents a significant potential burden for large institutions and G-SIBs serving tens of millions of customers, as well as a crushing blow to community banks and credit unions already dealing with high regulatory costs. Banks already spend billions to develop and maintain a secure data-access ecosystem. The Biden interpretation of Section 1033 would subsidize third-party data access at the expense of banks, potentially increasing fees on other consumer financial services to offset lost revenue.
The letter concludes by denouncing the left’s inclination to turn the financial sector into a public utility that is expected to freely serve other businesses at their own expense. While the agency revisits the rule, the letter calls on the CFPB to avoid reviving the Biden-era price controls embodied in the original rulemaking proposal.
Read the full coalition letter here.
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Author: Andrew Gins
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