Sharing financial data with others can assist in improving your business’s operations, increase your revenue and decrease expenses. However, it’s important to keep in mind the following six factors before deciding whether to share the financial information of your business with outside third parties.
1. Check to Make Sure Services are Legitimate
Although some use cases (such as closings on mortgages that require immediate access to potential lenders) work best when the consumer is able to grant one-off access, others need to be able to tap into and share large volumes of information over a prolonged period of time. Regardless of the approach it’s important to examine the company, app or platform’s credibility and follow its history within the industry. Look for reviews on third party websites, app stores, and other media.
2. Think about the wide range of sharing of data
Experts and consumers agree that banks and fintech apps must modernize the way they share customer account details to guard against security risks like hacking or identity theft. But they’re also skeptical that this will benefit because a lot of people are confused by the current view of data sharing, which may feel unwelcome and limit the possibility of getting insights.
Fintechs and banks could provide a dashboard which allows customers to control how their information about their accounts is shared with services they use. This could include budgeting applications or credit monitoring software and even monitoring mortgages and home values. For example, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citi and Plaid all allow customers to view which accounts have been shared with these services and to monitor their settings from their dashboard.