Fidelity Investment’s API-based start-up Akoya has become an independent entity that will be jointly owned by Fidelity, The Clearing House Payments Co. and 11 of its member banks.
Akoya’s systems are designed to operate a secure API network that creates a transparent and safer way for customers to gain access to their individual financial data to go to third-party financial apps.
Abigail P. Johnson, chairman and CEO of Fidelity Investments, stated: “Consumers’ personal financial data should only be accessed with their explicit consent and they should have the ability to monitor and revoke that access.”
“For this reason, we created Akoya and are now joining with several financial institutions to accelerate the availability of a secure, transparent and more reliable network for the entire financial services industry.”
Akoya was founded two years ago by FMR LLC, Fidelity Investment’s parent company. Since its introduction, the popularity of the system has increased exponentially with each year. This is considered a major factor in Fidelity’s decision to separate the entity from the company in order to be co-owned by other investors.
The approach Akoya provides is seen as more of a ‘palatable’ alternative to screen scraping tools, which rely on bank customers handing over credentials to third parties to access their account data.
JPMorgan, one of the 11 member banks, stated this month that fintech companies should sign onto a “concrete plan” in order to move from methods such as screen scraping and using customer passwords to a new data collection method, one which Akoya offers.
As of right now. the new owners of Akoya will be as follows: Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, Huntington Bank, KeyBank, PNC Bank, The Clearing House Payments Co., TD Bank, Truist, USBank and Wells Fargo joined with JPmorgan.
