President Joe Biden is encouraging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to issue rules allowing customers to download their banking data and take it with them.
The White House made the call as part of an executive order on promoting competition in the US economy, stating that "it is hard to switch banks partly because customers cannot easily take their financial transaction history data to a new bank".
Biden's intervention gives new impetus to a move that has been open to the CFPB since the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, under Section 1033.
The CFPB did take steps towards setting up rules late last year when it issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on Section 1033 and invited public comments, which closed in February. However, there has yet to be any further progress.
Rob Nichols, CEO, American Bankers Association, says: "ABA and our members fully support customers’ ability to access and share their financial data in a secure, transparent manner that gives them control.
"We have been working with the CFPB since 2017 on how to ensure consumers remain protected when they share their financial data outside of the secure banking ecosystem."
Financial data specialist MX has welcomed Biden's executive order and says that regulations put in place under Dodd-Franck should establish a consumer data right that assigns ownership to the consumer.
MX argues that such a right would benefit not just customers, but also the industry, leading to increased security, decreased risk and a fundamental shift to the creation of new revenue opportunities from API based services.