The Clearing House Rolls Out Data Sharing Evaluation For Apps, Aggregators

The Clearing House (TCH) has launched a new offering to make it simpler for data aggregators and financial apps to equip financial institutions (FI) with assessment information to perform its own risk evaluation, according to a Tuesday (Jan. 26) announcement emailed to PYMNTS.

The Streamlined Data Sharing Risk Assessment, which is offered by TruSight and KY3P® by IHS Markit, includes work developed via The Clearing House’s Connected Banking effort to simplify and standardize risk evaluations of financial apps and data aggregators.

“This centralized approach can reduce the need for financial apps and data aggregators to provide the same risk information again and again as they engage in data exchange agreements with FIs,” Ben Isaacson, senior vice president and Connected Banking product executive at The Clearing House, said in the announcement. “It aims to help financial institutions of all sizes meet their risk requirements more efficiently and cost-effectively.”

FIs separately seek and obtain data that is pertinent to their risk assessments every time they want to create or revamp a connection with an aggregator or financial app. That process brings about ineffectiveness and redundancy that bogs down the process of executing deals with data exchange partners. Per the announcement, the new service can simplify the process for FIs, data aggregators and financial apps, as these entities aim to assist consumers in securely sharing their financial data.

The Clearing House tested the Streamlined Data Sharing Risk Assessment with participation from Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Truist, TD Bank, PNC Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Plaid and Finicity.

TruSight conducted the test evaluations. The service was able to streamline the process of collecting data from participating data aggregators and offer it through a safe platform to each FI that took part in the effort. The simplified process collects much of the data that FIs need, possibly lessening the need for a long follow-up data collection process, according to the announcement.

As real-time payment (RTP) efforts move from the testing phase to global implementation, they also attract cybercrooks attracted by the potential of instant ill-gotten gains. “Real-time payments are becoming more and more popular among consumers and businesses alike, but some FIs are finding it challenging to safeguard such systems. These struggles are leading many to examine cutting-edge tools that can help them better protect these transactions from fraud,” according to PYMNTS’ Real-Time Payments Tracker®, conducted in collaboration with The Clearing House.