BROOKFIELD, Wis.–Fiserv said it has entered into an agreement with Finicity, a Mastercard company, to advance the future of open finance through secure data sharing.
A data access agreement between the companies will allow thousands of Fiserv financial institution clients to enable consumers to provide clear and explicit permission to securely share their account information with apps that use Finicity’s open banking platform, offering more payment choices, access to an expanding range of financial services experiences, and improved overall financial literacy and wellbeing, according to the companies.
“The ability to share data directly and securely is a key requirement in enabling open banking and finance,” said Marc DeCastro, research director at IDC Financial Insights. “With the industry moving to standardize data access, it is important that financial institutions of all sizes are able to tokenize customer data and make it accessible to third parties. Greater connectivity will move open finance forward by facilitating the frictionless and secure financial interactions consumers want.”
Tokenized Data to be Accessed
According to the company, Finicity will access tokenized consumer data via AllData Connect from Fiserv, a secure portal through which consumers can consent to share their financial data with third-party apps. AllData Connect issues an identifying token in place of the consumer’s username and password, and the third party is then able to provide that token to the financial institution to access the consumer’s data, the companies added.
“With seamless integration requiring minimal technical work, banks and credit unions can utilize AllData Connect to simplify the complexities of the consumer-permissioned data market and enable next-gen financial experiences through API access,” the companies added. “This integration will further position these banks and credit unions to be supportive of their customers’ digital banking and financial management preferences, enabling customers to share their data with the apps and services they select.”
‘Additional Insights’
Through AllData Connect, financial institutions may also gain additional insights about their customers and the third-party apps they are accessing, Fiserv and Finicity added.
“Banking relationships remain central to most peoples’ financial lives, yet they also expect to access their financial data when and where they want,” said Justin Jackson, head of product for digital payments at Fiserv. “Direct connections via APIs eliminate the need for consumers to share usernames and passwords with third parties, providing convenient and simplified access to their data in a more secure way.”
For info: fiserv.com