Visa abandons open banking in U.S. as data-access debate rages

Visa Inc. shut its open-banking business in the US amid regulatory uncertainty about consumer-data rights and the prospect of higher fees for customer information, according to people familiar with the matter.

The payments company has closed its open-banking operations, which provide technology to help third parties such as financial-technology firms access customer-account data, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.

The decision comes as the fate of a rule banning banks from charging for access to their customers’ data hangs in the balance. Under President Donald Trump, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had initially sought to vacate the open-banking measure, which enables consumers to access their highly coveted data and requires banks to share that information with other lenders or financial-services providers for free. The regulator is now trying to rework the rules.

In response to a request for comment about the move, a spokesperson for Visa said the company is focusing its open-banking strategy “in high-potential markets like Europe and Latin America.” On an earnings call in July, Visa Chief Executive Officer Ryan McInerney said those markets have the “greatest potential” for open banking.

Visa’s decision comes as JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to start charging fees potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars for access to their customers’ bank-account information, Bloomberg News reported in July. The move has sparked outrage from fintechs that say they can’t function without customer information.

Visa’s decision was made independently of JPMorgan’s change in strategy, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

It’s a significant course change from five years ago, when Visa tried to buy Plaid, a company that links bank accounts to fintech apps, for $5.3 billion. That deal was scrapped in 2021 after drawing antitrust scrutiny from the US Justice Department. Visa went on to acquire Tink, a Swedish competitor to Plaid, for about $2 billion later that year.

Visa executives said at the time that Tink would be a “strong partner with whom we can accelerate innovation in open banking.”

The open-banking landscape in the US has changed since then. When the CFPB finalized the rule in the last months of the Biden administration, bank lobbying groups immediately sued to block the measure, saying the arrangements could stoke fraud and expose their members to greater liability.

Proponents of the rule argue it enables customers to access a wider pool of financial services, fosters greater competition and boosts data security. This week, the CFPB took steps to begin rewriting the rule.
Visa’s biggest rival, Mastercard Inc., also offers open-banking services and remains committed to the business, Chief Financial Officer Sachin Mehra said in an interview last month.