“The data aggregator Plaid and U.S. Bancorp have agreed to share bank customers’ account data through an application programming interface, rather than through screen scraping. This is not a first. Plaid says it has forged data-sharing agreements with the majority of the top 10 financial institutions and it has an API-based data exchange that’s used by hundreds of small financial institutions. The banks have also signed with other data aggregators, including Finicity and Intuit. But the move by Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, which has $553 billion of assets, is the latest sign the industry is moving away from screen scraping and toward sending customer data directly to the aggregators through APIs”

“Akoya LLC announced today that Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. has joined the Akoya Data Access Network. The agreement will enable more than 400 banks and credit unions using Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Platform to securely connect with fintechs and data aggregators through the application programming interface (API)-based network this year. By integrating with Akoya, Jack Henry enables over 4.8 million customers of banks and credit unions using its Banno Digital Platform the ability to grant fintech apps access to their financial data. They will also be able to permission which data they share with third parties and revoke that permission at any time, providing peace of mind for customers using new fintech apps.”

“Through a strategic partnership, Railsbank customers in the UK will gain access to Plaid’s Payment Initiation API to accept instant bank payments directly within their app or website. With Plaid’s API, Railsbank customers—in fintech and beyond—can enable instant account-to-account transfers and create innovative payments journeys. As a result of the partnership, Railsbank customers have all the benefits of Plaid’s PIS product, without having to onboard with two separate service providers.”

“Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.® (NASDAQ: JKHY ) is a leading provider of technology solutions and payment processing services primarily for the financial services industry. Jack Henry announced today that it has partnered with Finicity , a Mastercard® company. Finicity’s integration to the Banno Digital Toolkit SM enables community financial institutions to provide consumers with the freedom to control, access, and share their financial data, creating a real-time picture of their financial health. The more than 400 community financial institutions using the Banno Digital Platform will be able to deliver this holistic financial experience to consumers through secure API access to third-party financial institutions, fintechs and financial partners of their choice at zero lift and zero cost.”

“GoCardless , a leading fintech for bank-to-bank payments, today launched Instant Bank Pay , a new open banking feature directly integrated into its global payment platform. With Instant Bank Pay, merchants can take instant, one-off bank-to-bank payments from new and existing customers while still reaping the benefits of bank debit for their recurring payments…With the introduction of Instant Bank Pay, GoCardless will expand its offering into the adjacent e-commerce market, where it can take on both one-off and card-on-file payments.”

“MX, the leader in modern connectivity and data enhancement for financial institutions, today announced it is partnering with Moov Financial, the developer-first payments platform, to provide instant account verification (IAV) and money movement to fintechs and companies of all sizes. Moov’s technology allows platforms, marketplaces, and software companies to quickly embed payment functionality into their software to accept, store, and disburse money seamlessly. Moov and MX’s offering includes an attractive pricing model for startup fintechs and SaaS companies looking for a complete turnkey solution.”

“Credit monitoring and building platform Credit Karma has picked Bud’s Open Banking stack to help its UK members find better financial products and make smart money decisions. Credit Karma will implement Bud’s Open Banking data aggregation and transaction intelligence platform in a move to underpin a set of new features designed to help members optimise their credit. The platform analyses and enriches members’ banking data, creating insights that power new personalised services for customers. Members get help finding better financial products and to manage their bills more efficiently with in-app switching services.”

“Finicity’s technology can, for example, help mortgage applicants instantly authorize payroll-based verification of their incomes , which allows them to more easily apply for loans with companies like Bank of America and or digital lender Rocket Mortgage. The two government-sponsored enterprises that control a large segment of the U.S. housing finance market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, recently made the company one of its vendors for such verifications, which stands to exponentially increase the platform’s use. Fintech providers have seen much growth in open banking space, said Garth Graham, a senior partner at the Stratmor Group, a mortgage industry consultancy.”

“Open finance has the potential to greatly benefit consumers, but raises questions of data ethics, according to industry stakeholders surveyed by the City regulator. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a feedback statement today on its call for input on open finance. The term refers to the extension of open banking-like data sharing to a wider range of financial products, such as savings, investments, pensions and insurance. The FCA’s call for input launched in December 2019 and closed in October 2020, having received 169 responses from industry stakeholders regarding their views on open finance. Responses showed that open finance can increase access to a wider range of more individually tailored products, empower consumers and businesses to make more informed financial decisions and make it easier for consumers and businesses to compare price and product features and switch easier.”

“Today marks the launch of BOPP, a brand-new payment platform that removes the need for cards, and uses Open Banking to facilitate immediate, secure payments directly from one bank account to another. A payment request can be sent in the form of a pay link via SMS, WhatsApp, email or QR code. The payment request link takes the user to the secure BOPP site, connects to the recipient’s online banking app and provides all the payee and transaction details – the payer only needs to authorise and confirm the payment with their bank. The money is transferred securely in real-time, without the need for credit or debit cards.”

“One of our goals this year is to consistently level up our product so that you can provide the best experience to your customers. A key part of that is creating a faster, higher converting account connection process that continues to provide a secure and transparent experience. Last year we introduced the all-new Plaid Link with a cleaner, more accessible design and a new returning user experience (RUX) to make account connection easy, simple and intuitive.”

“Leading Open Banking payments platform, Token, and BNP Paribas, today announced the launch of the first online payments service to combine the power of SEPA Instant and PSD2 APIs, two major initiatives from the European Payments Council. Developed with Token, BNP Paribas Instanea is a turnkey instant payments initiation solution. It delivers account-to-account (A2A) payment capabilities to enhance the speed and increase the security of transactions for merchants across Europe. Token’s Open Payments platform is driving the shift from traditional payment methods to A2A payments. It provides pan-European connectivity to banks, and rich functionality to enable existing Payment Service Providers to benefit from Open Banking capabilities.”

“NatWest has unveiled a significant improvement to its open banking payments service . The enhancement to Payit by NatWest is aimed primarily at business users and promises to offer added convenience when companies need to send payments.   Payit by NatWest will now let businesses send payments directly to their customers without needing to have their bank details, relying instead on the power of open banking . The new feature will effectively eradicate the need for cheques and even bank transfers.”

“VibePay has today announced it is bringing together AISP and PISP, leveraging its ability to practically apply Open Banking technology and take it to consumers. VibePay users can now connect all of their bank accounts to the app, giving them the power to view all of their balances, transactions and make payments in one place, regardless of who they bank with. VibePay is the UK’s Open Banking champion, bringing this technology to businesses and consumers like no other. By building directly on top of Open Banking, VibePay is a bridge between what the technology enables and what consumers need. Making it useful and impactful to consumers’ financial lives.”

“Lloyds Banking Group is tapping Mastercard’s Open Banking software to enable customers to pay off their credit card bills via their mobile app and draw on funds directly from a current account of their choice. By initiating a PISP (Payment Initiation Service Provider) payment using Mastercard’s Open Banking Connect system, Lloyds Banking customers will no longer need to go through the hassle of re-keying debit card details or having to set up the credit card as a payee from a current account using a different banking app.”

“Akoya LLC announced today that JPMorgan Chase has joined the Akoya Data Access Network . Fintechs, data aggregators and other data recipients can now request application programming interface (API)-based access to Chase customer data through Akoya. The bank’s commitment to make secure data sharing available through the Akoya Data Access Network significantly increases the scale of the network, which enables one-to-many API connections between data providers, such as financial institutions, and data recipients. The Akoya Data Access Network is available to the entire U.S. financial services industry.”

“Open banking provider Bud is heading to New Zealand to help the country’s biggest bank ANZ NZ automate more of its lending, AltFi can exclusively reveal. Later today Bud will announce a strategic partnership with ANZ that will see the fintech’s aggregation and categorisation service adopted by the bank.”

“Atom Bank, a UK-based mobile bank, announced on Tuesday it has joined forces with UK fintech Plaid  to roll out open banking services to its customers, beginning with offering small business owners a new loan application journey and speedier decisions.”

“At a time when many U.S. banks can’t decide if they should be a customer , an investor , a partner , or just sue them , Plaid is the topic of many conversations within bank and fintech circles. The company is also fresh off the heels of pulling away from a merger with Visa V +3.1% , and seemingly energized with a renewed sense of purpose and market opportunity.  Like many of the largest U.S. banks, Bank of America BAC +2.7% has been silent when it comes to Plaid and their public position on the company. However, recent enhancements to the bank’s online banking and alerts suggest that Bank of America is now working with Plaid through a data sharing agreement.”

“Financial industry leaders are launching a new service to make it more efficient for financial apps and data aggregators to provide assessment information to financial institutions (FIs), and for each FI to conduct its own risk assessment. The Streamlined Data Sharing Risk Assessment provided by TruSight and KY3P® by IHS Markit – third-party assessment services — incorporates work developed through The Clearing House’s Connected Banking initiative to standardize and streamline risk evaluations of data aggregators and financial apps.”

“Financial API provider TrueLayer has today launched its own payment method, PayDirect. Through PayDirect firms will be able to streamline their payments processes in just a matter of minutes, using open banking tools such as account verification, instant account funding through open banking, instant withdrawals and instant refunds.”