Data Mobility and the Financial Sector: How to Regulate?

Data and access to data is becoming increasingly important in the financial sector

This is true of financial data, but also increasingly of non-financial data collected by BigTechs platforms or data generated by connected products such as cars and wearables. Broader availability of this data could contribute to financial innovation. Unequal access to relevant data, moreover, can also adversely affect competition and concentration in the financial sector; and ultimately negatively impact financial stability.  Giving data holders a greater ability to share relevant data with financial institutions can reduce data concentration and can thus contribute to a more innovative, competitive financial sector.  

Greater focus on interests of data holders 

Data sharing can create benefits for financial consumers (i.e. data holders), but also poses risks: data sharing can expose data holders to a loss of privacy and consumers can be adversely affected by insights derived from their data. Moreover, sharing of data by one data holder can also affect others that have not shared their data. Therefore, in addition to requiring that a data holder grant permission for the sharing of their data, data users should also be given a responsibility to use data that is shared with them in an ethical manner.  

Linking (sectoral) data-sharing initiatives 

To enhance the potential of data mobility, AFM and DNB find it important that different data types can be shared in a seamless matter. Moreover, it is key for AFM and DNB that the same protections and rules apply to the sharing of different types of data.  In the short run, this requires that the design and implementation of sectoral data-sharing legislation – including an Open Finance initiative that would enable data holders to share a broader set of financial data – be coordinated and reciprocal. In the longer term, a cross-sectoral (horizontal) approach to data-sharing regulation may be set up that can streamline protections for data holders and rules and requirements around -inter alia - compensation or liability.  

Invitation to Respond to the Discussion Paper 

The Discussion Paper contains a set of discussion questions. We invite any stakeholder to provide their views in respect of these questions, by filling out the attached interactive pdf in either English or Dutch and returning it to consultatie@dnb.nl by close of business 11 November 2022.