Fidelity Investments is to spin off its API-based data sharing startup Akoya as an independent entity that will be jointly owned by Fidelity, The Clearing House Payments Co. and eleven of its member banks.
Akoya operates a secure API network that creates a safer and more transparent way for consumers to grant access to their personal financial data to third-party financial apps.
The approach provides a more palatable alternative to old-school screen scraping tools which rely on bank customers handing over their credentials to third parties to access their account data.
JPMorgan - one the eleven clearing house members backing the deal - this month warned fintech firms that they must sign onto a "concrete plan" by July to move from methods such as screen scraping and using customer passwords to a new data collection method.
Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, Huntington Bank, KeyBank, PNC Bank, The Clearing House Payments Co., TD Bank, Truist, USBank and Wells Fargo joined with JPmorgan in assuming ownership of Akoya.
“Consumers’ personal financial data should only be accessed with their explicit consent and they should have the ability to monitor and revoke that access,” says Abigail P. Johnson, chairman and CEO of Fidelity Investments. “For this reason, we created Akoya and are now joining with several financial institutions to accelerate the availability of a secure, transparent and more reliable network for the entire financial services industry.”