JPMorgan reopens fight with fintechs, crypto over fees for customer data

In late 2024, US regulators put an end to a longstanding fight between banks and technology companies over control of their customers’ financial data: Customers have the right to demand, download and transfer their data, for free, per the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s landmark open banking rule.

Less than 10 months later, policymakers say they’re going back to the drawing board, the country’s biggest bank is planning to charge for access to customers’ data, and executives at some of the biggest financial technology companies, crypto firms and retailers are furious. 

“I thought we were done with this one, but here we are again,” said Leigh Phillips, chief executive officer of the nonprofit SaverLife, which runs an app that accesses its users’ bank data to reward them for saving. If new fees trickle down to the organization’s hundreds of thousands of mostly low-income members, “it’s not a marginal effect,” she said. “Our families are really struggling, so anything that increases costs or your risk of fees is a big deal.” 

The CFPB said in a court filing Tuesday that it would reconsider the open banking rule, less than three weeks after Bloomberg reported JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s plan to start charging tech firms for access to customers’ data. The move — and PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s subsequent announcement that it would consider similar charges — sent shock waves through the digital world, which relies on that flow of information to power almost every consumer financial app on the market. 

App developers hustled to understand the consequences for their business models. Investors recoiled, sending shares in the biggest fintech companies falling by as much as 6.5%. Cryptocurrency partisans at the highest levels of President Donald Trump’s administration warned of its innovation-stifling consequences.   

Across the industry, there’s widespread agreement – in theory – that consumers should control who accesses their data and when. But in practice, that information flow is subject to regulation and to the ongoing maintenance of a digital infrastructure, for which the banks currently bear the cost. 

They paint the data aggregation services as freeloaders. Companies like Plaid Inc. and MX Technologies Inc., along with others owned by Stripe Inc., Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., provide the digital tools that deliver customers’ data from the banks to almost every financial technology app on the market, a business model that, the banks say, takes advantage of their investments in infrastructure and compliance for their own profit. 

“Data middlemen endlessly access our customers’ data for free — 90% of the time without a customer request — and then charge third parties for that same data,” a JPMorgan spokesperson said in an emailed statement. 

Tech firms and consumer advocates disagree, saying that banks have to facilitate the information flow as part of their responsibility to customers, akin to the way a patient can direct her doctor to share her health records with other providers at any time, for any reason.

JPMorgan plans to start charging the data aggregators within months. Those firms could quickly shift any increased costs to clients, who will in turn have to figure out whether and how much to pass on to users. Across the industry, it could total hundreds of millions of dollars. 

“The fee is the first step,” said Dan Quan, a former CFPB official and now general partner of NevCaut Ventures. “Ultimately, this is about who’s the boss. The next thing is about controlling the access.”

Years of fighting

Banks and tech companies have been sparring over access to customers’ data for at least a decade. In the early days, apps would collect users’ bank or credit card login credentials, then funnel it to aggregators like Plaid or Yodlee, which used it to scrape and structure users’ data and pipe it back to the app.  

For consumers, and the growing financial technology industry, the availability of the data opened the door to all kinds of new applications. But the banks complained about the potential for fraud inherent in customers sharing their credentials with a third party. They also realized that some of the fintechs were offering services – overdraft alerts, for example, or high-yield savings – that threatened parts of the big banks’ businesses. 

The technology, and the growth of the app economy, outpaced the banks’ objections. Roughly half of US consumers have interacted with Plaid at some point. In April, it raised $575 million in fresh capital at a valuation of $6.1 billion. 

The bank now receives around 2 billion “data calls” each month, according to people familiar with the firm’s operations but not authorized to speak publicly about them. The digital inquiries originate when Robinhood Markets Inc., Coinbase Global Inc., Wealthfront or any of the hundreds of other fintechs verify a user’s account balance or track transactions. 

As of now, the fintechs pay the aggregators for each data call, with fees that could be as high as $1.25 to link a new customer’s accounts and as low as 5 cents to check a balance, according to estimates in a July 14 note by UBS analysts.

JPMorgan plans to create a similar fee structure, charging the aggregators for each call. Rates and terms seem negotiable — the bank announced plans to offer customers a direct link to Coinbase — but in at least one case, the proposed pricing exceeds transaction revenue by 1,000%, according to a person who’d seen the terms. 

For smaller companies, particularly those that provide financial advice or budgeting apps, higher costs for data could upend their entire businesses, Quan said. “If you’re in that kind of business, you’re dead,” he said. “You can’t afford to do that.”

Many other banks are considering whether to follow JPMorgan. Capital One Financial Corp. declined to comment but previously pushed for the “recoupment of reasonable costs.” A Bank of America Corp. spokesperson said its clients “own their data and should control how, when and by whom it is used,” but declined to say whether they were planning to charge for the data. Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. declined to comment. 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has no plans to charge for access, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans.

Coordinated opposition

In addition to a new layer of costs, many in the industry are objecting to what they see as a unilateral move by JPMorgan to dictate the framework and fee structure for consumer data.

“Horrible anti competitive behavior from JPMC,” venture capitalist and Trump supporter Ben Horowitz wrote on X. The crypto outcry reached the White House, with both senior adviser David Sacks and Donald Trump Jr. amplifying a post from Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss accusing “the banksters” of trying to kill fintech and crypto companies. 

For retailers, the fees and the higher rate for payment calls complicate their efforts to build proprietary apps that would let customers pay via bank transfer, which the retailers like because it avoids the fees banks charge to process credit and debit card transactions. 

“The fintechs and crypto and stable really have an opportunity to disrupt the ecosystem when it comes to debit and credit and for future payments,” said Austen Jensen, a spokesperson for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which includes Walmart Inc., Target Corp., and the Home Depot Inc. among its members. 

Last week, the Financial Technology Association, the Blockchain Association, National Retail Federation and others asked President Trump to support the CFPB’s current open banking rules and fight JPMorgan’s efforts in court. 

“You recognize the transformative potential of digital financial technologies and are leading efforts to enact and implement digital asset legislation,” they wrote in a letter. “The largest banks stand in direct opposition to your vision of making America the financial innovation capital of the world.”

The 2024 open banking rule is now on indefinite hold, its April implementation deadline stayed by a federal court judge on Tuesday at the CFPB’s request. The agency plans to reconsider the issues from the beginning, a process that can take years and span administrations before it becomes a rule. 

© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.