Washington, D.C. — In response to a new proposed rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to facilitate enhanced consumer access to their financial data and promote competition — through a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act known as Section 1033 — the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“The CFPB’s proposed rule will be a game-changer for innovation, empowering consumers to fully control their personal financial data and leveling the playing field for startups against industry giants,” said Morgan Harper, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Much like how Big Tech locked in users by limiting content and connection portability, the big banks have hoarded access to financial data to cement their own monopoly power, which they can use to charge excessive fees and worsen products. But by giving consumers more control over their data, the CFPB is forcing both Big Tech and Big Finance to actually compete for their customers and ushering in a new standard for data protection in finance.”

The CFPB’s new Personal Financial Data Rights rule aims to stimulate competition by preventing financial institutions from hoarding individuals’ data and necessitating data sharing only at the consumer’s directive. The rule mandates data availability without extra charges, establishes a legal right for data sharing, enables easy switching from subpar services, and provides rigorous data abuse safeguards. While the proposal intends to be phased in, with bigger providers adopting earlier, community banks and credit unions without digital interfaces will be exempt.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.