By: 25 February 2020

FMR, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, launched Akoya last year. The data firm operates a secure API-based network that acts as a bridge between financial institutions and data recipients

Financial data network Akoya has been spun off as an independent company less than a year after its launch.

FMR, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, launched Akoya last year. The data firm operates a secure application programming interface (API)-based network that creates a safer and more transparent way for consumers to grant access to their personal financial data to third-party financial apps.

The new independent company is jointly owned by Fidelity, The Clearing House Payments Co. and 11 of its member banks.

The Akoya network acts as a bridge between financial institutions and data recipients, such as fintechs and data aggregators.

Available to the entire financial services industry, Akoya allows consumers to access the services of third-party data recipients without sharing their account login credentials, through the wide adoption of APIs.

Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, Huntington Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, KeyBank, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo & Company are the member banks to come on board as joint owners of the newly independent Akoya.

Abigail Johnson, chairman and chief executive officer of Fidelity Investments, said: “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.”

Michael Corbat, chief executive officer of Citigroup and chairman of The Clearing House, added: “This is a major step forward in giving consumers control of their data and allowing them to share that data securely with third-party applications they want to use. Data security is a top priority for the industry, and bringing Akoya together with The Clearing House and its members will meaningfully advance the availability of a secure data sharing ecosystem while preserving customer choice.”

Image: FMR