Fiserv, Inc. and Akoya are collaborating to enable secure data sharing among financial institutions, their customers, and the third parties with which they do business. The Fiserv collaboration with Akoya will enable seamless experiences across the Fiserv client base of financial institutions, fintechs, and merchants. Financial institutions and fintechs can reduce risk related to account opening and funding and account to account transfers with secure permissioned access to information from consumers?

accounts at other financial institutions. Merchants 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 to the merchant via the Carat global commerce platform from Fiserv. Fiserv will have direct API access to consumer data from Akoya?s network of financial institutions and brokerage firms, while Akoya will utilize AllData® Connect from Fiserv to access consumer data from more than 2,800 financial institutions.

Because data is shared directly between Fiserv and Akoya on behalf of their clients and at the direction of consumers, there is no need for consumers to share their banking credentials with third parties, enhancing security and consumer control over access to their data. AllData Connect, part of the AllData® Aggregation product suite, allows consumers to provide consent to share their financial data with third-party applications without having to share their log-in credentials. In place of credentials, AllData Connect validates the consumer directly with their bank or credit union and issues a token that the third party uses to access and update consumer data via AllData Connect.

API-based data access solutions are allowing the financial services industry to move away from a structure in which unregulated entities store large amounts of financial data, including consumer credentials. By enabling secure, direct access to tokenized consumer data, Fiserv and Akoya?s agreement will align both organizations with industry protocols related to data sharing standardization, including consumer transparency and control, while providing the next-gen financial experiences that consumers seek.