The news: JPMorgan Chase signed updated contracts with Plaid, Yodlee, Morningstar, and Akoya, accounting for more than 95% of open banking data requests to the bank’s systems.

The aggregators reportedly negotiated down JPMorgan’s prices for data access and won small concessions, but the terms were not disclosed. Fees reportedly differ by use case, and overall cost grows with data volume.

Zoom out: The volume is not small: JPMorgan said it received 1.89 billion data requests in June and would charge fintechs for access to consumer data. It renewed its data access agreement with Plaid in September. CNBC speculated this could cost Plaid up to $300 million per year, which Plaid reportedly would absorb rather than passing it along to customers.

The fintech industry was quiet in response to the updated contracts. But when JPMorgan first announced the fees, it provoked fury amid a flurry of lobbying against data access fees. The turmoil after the Trump administration withdrew the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) 2024 personal financial data rights rule was inevitable: For years, the banking industry has pushed back against the rule, which favored fintechs.

Trendspotting: Dominoes are starting to fall. PNC has considered charging fintechs for access to data, and Wells Fargo and PNC are pushing fintechs to use the bank-owned aggregator Akoya. Schwab and Fidelity have kept up the data access crackdown. The CFPB’s new rule is tied up in a public comment period—under the Trump administration, it’s anybody’s guess when we might see a new rule. Chances are that the next edition will be watered down.

Our take: No matter how the final rule ends up, financial institutions (FIs) that are not adapting to open banking are making a mistake. Long before the CFPB’s first open banking rule was finalized, the private sector developed infrastructure for consumer-permissioned data access, and an ecosystem of fintechs had sprung up to take advantage.

Consumer demand for fintech products hasn’t suddenly disappeared: FIs that have made no effort to securely transmit consumer data are lagging technology-forward peers in customer experience and consumer privacy and security. Without a policy nudge, it’s easy for FIs to be tempted to put open banking on the back burner—alongside the digital transformation that should have come with it.