In the coming weeks, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to issue a new rule superseding a Biden-era interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act that mandated banks provide data access to financial technology (or fintechs) at zero cost.

But rather than simply repeal the mandate, the agency is reportedly considering a hybrid price control/market regime in which some, but not all transactions would have a zero price control. It would be much better for the Trump administration to simply stick to its free-market guns and leave this matter to negotiations between the banks and fintechs.

Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act states banks must provide customer data to fintech firms at the request of mutual customers – including peer-to-peer lending platforms like Zelle and Venmo, or stock market brokers like Robinhood – often through data aggregators, or middlemen. What remained a point of contention up until the Biden administration was whether banks would be able to charge for ongoing, continuous access to that data beyond consumer requests.

In what amounted to a........

© Yuma Sun