Common standards make access to and control of financial data easier

Ever more of our financial transactions are being carried out online, but if you have accounts with more than one provider, keeping track of information can be a challenge both for businesses and individuals.

Formed in October 2018, the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) is committed to uniting the financial industry around a single, interoperable and royalty-free standard for consumers and businesses to access their financial data.

"Financial data empowers consumers and businesses to make information-driven decisions and helps increase financial literacy. Establishing common, free-to-use standards -- such as the FDX API -- lowers barriers and widens the availability of services to consumers at all socio-economic levels," says Don Cardinal, managing director of the Financial Data Exchange.

The Exchange now has 72 members -- compared to 21 at its launch -- and has seen the rapid adoption of its FDX API standard. In a recent survey, members reported 5.26 million US customers on the standard and they expect to have it rolled out to eight million customers by the end of this year and approximately 12 million by April 2020.

"The FDX API standard keeps the financial services ecosystem at the vanguard of protecting digital identity and privacy," adds Cardinal. "The continued growth and adoption of this member-driven standard prove the relevance of our organization's work,"

The organization's focus for 2020 will be on expanding FDX's global footprint and continuing to build relationships with international standards bodies that have established best practices in their respective domains, such as recently-formed agreements with the Kantara Initiative and OpenID Foundation.

The Financial Data Exchange recently published its Five Principles of Data Sharing -- Control, Access, Transparency, Traceability, and Security -- which serve both as operating principles for FDX, and as guidelines for the industry on the essential elements of a secure, transparent approach to the sharing of financial data.

"We believe that account owners should have access to their data and be in control of which aspects they want to share," says Cardinal. "They should know for what purpose their data is used, which parties have access to it, and ultimately have confidence in the security and privacy of their information."

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