Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Kicks Off Extensive Privacy Rulemaking Process

The CFPB took the first step last week to put into place a comprehensive privacy rule that would significantly impact how consumers can manage their financial data.

Just envision a world where you can take all of your transactional data, payment history and the like and transfer that information from one bank to another, so that you have a continuous stream of information available to you, but also available to your new bank. In this kind of world, banks would compete much more with each other to offer better customer service, and consumers can benefit from not having to "start all over again" each time they change financial institutions. The CFPB also believes this freedom to move data is something that will lead to even more innovation in the fintech space. Noting that as many as 100 million consumers have authorized fintech companies to access their accounts at financial institutions to drive a wide variety of services, such as improved savings, money management,