Nikita Aggarwal (University of Miami, School of Law) has posted Lobbying for Data: The Political Economy of Open Banking Regulation on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Article examines the political economy of Open Banking regulation in the United States and its implications for consumer financial regulation in the digital age. Drawing on a novel dataset of federal lobbying disclosure reports and associated public comments on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Open Banking rulemaking, the Article examines which interest groups sought to influence Open Banking regulation through lobbying and with what apparent success. It finds that firms positioned as net data recipients in Open Banking—primarily, financial software companies and other nonbank fintechs—lobbied more intensively than actors positioned as net data providers—primarily, traditional incumbent banks. Data recipients also advanced policy positions more closely aligned with the core design choices of the final Open Banking Rule, such as cost-free data access. Many of the most active data-recipient lobbyists are themselves incumbents in infrastructural financial software markets. Consumers, meanwhile, were largely absent. Viewed alongside post-rulemaking developments, such as litigation by incumbent banks and the reopening of the rulemaking by the Bureau, the findings suggest not a wholesale displacement of incumbent bank power, but a reordering of influence toward fintech firms, including incumbents, whose business models and technical expertise position them as key interlocutors in the regulation of technologically complex financial markets. At the same time, the turn to litigation highlights the strategic substitution of institutional venues through which political influence is exercised. The Article concludes by exploring the implications of these shifts for how the consumer interest is defined and protected in digital financial markets.