Ten of the biggest unions in Fintech and Krypto have called on President Donald Trump to intervene in what they are saying is a coordinated attack by large banks to strangle innovation and unlock competitors.
In a letter sent on Wednesday, the groups, which include the Blockchain Association, warned and Crypto Council for Innovation, that JPMorgan’s plan to charge fees for access to consumer banking data threatening to de-bank millions of Americans and could destroy the adoption of stableecoins (USDC, USDT) and self-customscustody drawing.
At the center of the match is how Americans finance digital wallets and exchanges. Aggregators such as Plaid and MX allow consumers to transfer funds from their bank accounts to platforms such as Coinbase or Kraken. These connections rely on direct access to user -submitted data.
Until now, banks have allowed this access without charging fees. However, JPMorgan has begun to inform aggregators that they will have to pay for it – reported up to $ 300 million a year for plaid alone, which would make up more than 75% of the company’s revenue.
“Let’s be clear: Financial data belongs to the American people, not the banks,” the letter reads. “By challenging Open Bank, the biggest banks are in direct resistance to your vision of making America the world’s economic innovation capital.”
The letter calls on the White House to act before July 29, when the administration is to submit a legal brief in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s open bank rule.
CFPB’s open bank rule, which was completed by the end of 2024, usually 1033, requires banks to give consumers free access to their account data and allow them to share them with third -party services.
The rule was intended to smooth the rules of the game between banks and fintechs. But banks sued to block it the day it was completed, and CFPB has since asked the court to leave the rule completely.
In a post on X, Kraken Co-Ceo called Arjun Sethi JPMorgan’s Move a “calculated shift” that transforms user-generated data into a toll that warned that the industry witnesses a well-known centralization pattern that transforms control.
“There is a version of the future where any financial interaction is intermediate of systems that monitor, price and gate access to your own data,” he wrote. “Crypto presents an alternative. But that alternative is not guaranteed.”
