A coalition of U.S. crypto, fintech and retail groups is uniting to defend open banking, warning in a letter that big banks’ attempts to charge for data access could stifle connections between the financial system and digital wallets and stablecoins.
Groups including the Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for Innovation, the National Association of Convenience Stores and the National Retail Federation have written to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) asking the regulator to preserve key protections in its pending Rule 1033.
The rule would give consumers the right to freely share their financial data with third-party services, allowing them to connect bank accounts to crypto exchanges, stablecoin wallets and other fintech platforms.
The coalition said big banks were pushing to restrict the selection criteria for consumer representatives and to impose data access fees. These changes would strengthen incumbents, weaken competition and cut cryptocurrencies and digital wallets’ ties to the U.S. banking system, the group said.
“A strong open banking rule is crucial for a competitive, thriving and innovative financial services ecosystem,” the letter reads. “Over the past decade, many of the financial innovations Americans use today were developed with the political certainty that the United States was moving toward open banking.”
While banks say open banking would incur additional costs for them, the coalition argued that these costs – like cloud storage and technology infrastructure – are common and expected for any modern bank in the world.
The coalition warned that a weakening of Rule 1033 could leave the United States lagging behind other major economies such as the United Kingdom, Singapore and Brazil, where open banking frameworks are already the norm.
“Open and strong banking rules are what keeps the United States competitive,” the group wrote, urging the CFPB to finalize Rule 1033 “without capitulating to attempts by the largest banks to tax access to Americans’ own financial data.”
