Putting Some Much-Needed Clamps on Unsafe Data Sharing Across the Financial Space

Human beings have proven themselves to be good at many different things, and yet the fact remains that they do nothing better than growing on a consistent basis. This progressive approach, on our part, has already got the world to hit upon some huge milestones, with technology appearing as a major member of the stated group. The reason why technology enjoys such an esteemed stature among people is, by and large, predicated upon its skill-set, which ushered us towards a reality that nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, if we look up close for a second, it will become clear how the whole runner was also very much inspired from the way we applied those skills across a real world environment. The latter component was, in fact, what gave the creation a spectrum-wide presence, and consequentially, kickstarted a tech revolution. Of course, this revolution then went on to scale up the human experience through some outright unique avenues, but even after achieving such a monumental feat, technology will somehow continue to produce the right goods. The same has grown increasingly evident over the recent past, and assuming one new fintech-themed development shakes out just like we envision, it will only make that trend bigger and better moving forward.

Fiserv inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, has officially teamed up with Akoya to ensure secure data sharing among financial institutions, their customers, and any third parties with which they do business. Under the agreed terms, Fiserv will have direct API access to consumer data present across Akoya’s network of financial institutions and brokerage firms, whereas on the other hand, Akoya will utilize Fiserv’s AllData® Connect platform to access consumer data from more than 2,800 financial institutions. Staying on the AllData® Connect platform for a second, a part of Fiserv’s AllData^® Aggregation product suite, it basically lets the customer provide consent to share their financial data, and it does so without mandating them to share their log-in credentials at any point during the process. Rather than log-in credentials, the platform validates the consumer directly with their bank or credit union and issues a token that the third party then uses to access and update consumer data via AllData Connect. Anyway, given the collaboration will allow the two companies to directly exchange user data on the behalf but still at the direction of their clients, it automatically eliminates a longstanding need for the latter to share their banking credentials with third parties, something which should enhance security and consumer’s control over who can access their data. These financial institutions, fintechs, and merchants, that the stated partnership is planning to help can also reduce their risk exposure in terms of account opening and funding and account to account transfers through secure permissioned access of information from consumers’ accounts at other financial institutions. Furthermore, they can offer a Pay by Bank option by enabling consumers to link their bank account to the merchant’s wallet or app to make direct payments via Fiserv’s Carat global commerce platform.

“Fiserv and Akoya are empowering consumers to share their data by creating a broader and more secure data access network,” said Matt Wilcox, President of Digital Payments at Fiserv. “Direct access to data facilitates more integrated digital experiences for consumers and improves the security of the financial ecosystem.

Founded in, Fiserv is today firmly placed amongst the esteemed group of Fortune 500 companies. The company delivers bleeding-edge innovation across areas like account processing and digital banking solutions; card issuer processing and network services; payments; e-commerce; merchant acquiring and processing, and plenty more. Fiserv’s excellence in providing these services can be validated by the fact that it is also a member of the S&P 500® Index.

Moving on to Akoya, it has its utility rooted in transforming the way consumer financial data is accessed and shared. You see, just by integrating with the company’s technology, financial institutions can directly connect with data aggregators, fintechs, and other financial institutions to share consumer-permissioned financial data through APIs.

“This will help consumers manage exactly who they give their data to and understand how their data will be accessed and used,” said Paul LaRusso, CEO of Akoya. “100% of Akoya’s traffic to financial institutions goes through APIs. Akoya doesn’t ask for consumers’ passwords, and it doesn’t screen-scrape. All consumers deserve this protection and control.”