Banks reluctant to share personal data with sites
NEW YORK — The uneasy relationship between banks and companies that use their data to provide personal finance services has shown signs of fraying in recent months, causing some frustrating disruptions in service to people trying to track their spending.
Who knew keeping tabs on your monthly coffee budget could be so contentious?
Personal finance websites and apps that can provide a way for users to monitor their finances across all of their banks and credit cards have become popular because they give users an almost real-time view of their financial lives in a way that was impossible a few years ago. Mint, a personal finance service owned by Intuit, has 2.5 million daily users. BillGuard, which monitors for fraudulent transactions, has 1.3 million users.
But these sites and apps depend on data from all of each user’s financial institutions, data that is extremely sensitive.
JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America said they temporarily cut or slowed down the amount of data they are providing to sites like Mint. com on a few occasions recently. While Capital One still allows customers to access their data on these services, the bank offers a stern warning that it is not “liable for any resulting damages or losses” if a customer’s data is breached at one of those services.
The banks say the reason for the disruptions is technical. The personal finance sites strain the banks’ computer systems, the banks say, because the millions of Mint users ping Chase or BofA constantly for recent transactions, deposits and other data. That leaves them a choice between providing services to these aggregators and keeping their own websites running.
The banks are uncomfortable with the personal finance services for other reasons.
A few banks have admitted that they have failed to deliver comprehensive financial management tools to their customers, allowing these sites to flourish. And they say they are worried that these third-party sites could expose customer log-in data and financial information to cyber-criminals.