“It’s the people’s data. It’s the people’s money. And we can’t innovate financial privacy laws without our communities being at the center of those decisions.”

Video (YouTube)

WASHINGTON – Today, at a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) emphasized the need for consumers’ autonomy over their financial information and history and protection from big banks and FinTech companies sharing such data without explicit consent. Rep. Pressley urged support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Open Banking rule, which would allow consumers to not only share financial information with financial platforms but also have autonomy over their financial data to share with other financial institutions of their choosing.

A transcript of Congresswoman Pressley’s remarks is available below, and the video is available here.

Transcript: Pressley Calls for Autonomy over Consumers’ Personal Financial Data, Urges Support for CFPB Open Banking Rule to Limit Big Bank Abuse
House Financial Services Committee
March 17, 2026

REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I want to put this hearing in perspective for the American public watching this hearing just to demonstrate why it is time to move to open banking.

So imagine Mark, a 30-year-old renter in my district, the Massachusetts 7^TH.

Now, Mark splits bills with his roommate and uses a property management website like GreyStar or Peabody Properties to pay the rent directly with a credit card, and uses an app to send money to his roommate for the water and electricity bills that they share. 

Now Mark likely has no clue exactly what happens when he clicks the send button. 

He, like millions of Americans, is likely completely unaware financial information is being shared with marketing platforms and credit reporting agencies and even data brokers without his explicit permission. 

But what he does know is that when he checks his mailbox, there’s random junk mail with his name and address for new credit cards, and when he checks his emails, there is spam about opening a bank account.

That doesn’t happen by chance. It is by design.

Our financial system enables big banks and FinTech companies to abuse our financial data for their own profit. 

Meanwhile, Mark and the rest of us are limited and told what we can and cannot do with our own data. 

Now, here’s the thing, we can actually do something about this. 

We have the opportunity to change that with the open banking rule—to really empower consumers to decide how their financial data is used and shared. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s open banking rule would allow consumers to not only share financial information with platforms to pay your rent or bills, like many already do. It would also allow consumers to take their financial history with them to other banks and have the choice to make decisions that work best for them. 

It would empower consumers. Ms. McCleary, what should the everyday person understand about the move toward open banking and how it would benefit them when they want to purchase a home, retire, or start a business, for example?

MS. MACCLEERY: Thank you so much for the question. It’s a really important one. Data portability and data rights, in terms of how you negotiate your rights with systems, are key to building consumer understanding of this.

And you might say that the current regime under GLBA, which is the opt-out regime, does nothing to advance consumer understanding of this, because it’s essentially a passive mechanism. 

If you get one of these form letters in the mail, that’s just a sort of notice on paper, and you’re expected to be the one to act. The default is that you’re in the data, whether you want unless you’ve chosen otherwise. 

That is not deepening people’s sense that they have a right to their data and that they are a good custodian of their data. So I would say one of the reasons why opt-ins are the preferred mechanism by different consumer groups and across the data privacy world, and in the California law is because it helps build that sense of ownership among the public. 

Someone can say, “Wait a second, I didn’t sign up for that.” When you’ve just gotten a paper letter that is part of your junk mail stack in the mail, you’re not going to have that same sense of ownership or sense that you might be able to stick up for yourself in terms of the company’s rights. So that’s – it’s moving the default that would matter the most.

REP. PRESSLEY: Yeah. I mean, look, it’s the people’s data. It’s the people’s money. 

And we can’t innovate financial privacy laws without our communities being at the center of those decisions. 

Given all the benefits of open banking, could you just speak to why exactly are people opposed? Why would they work so actively to obstruct this progress and this empowering of the consumer?

MS. MACCLEERY: Why do large corporations that benefit from people being locked into their services oppose the ability of people to walk away in response to market forces? I think that’s the question sort of answers itself, unfortunately. 

REP. PRESSLEY: Fair enough.

Finally, you know – having read your written, the testimony you submitted – you spoke about some of the ways in which we could improve accessibility, acknowledging limitations for those for whom English is not their first language, impacts of you know, AI. 

So, what should Congress be keeping in mind to make it more accessible for people to know their financial rights? 

MS. MACCLEERY: Yeah, if a financial transaction was negotiated in a particular language, all of the related documents – legal documents, disclosures and everything else – should be in that language. 

It shouldn’t be that you’re marketing to someone in their language, but then you turn around and hand them a stack of papers they can’t read. So that’s a pretty simple rule of thumb, and I think that belongs in any kind of disclosure regime. 

REP. PRESSLEY: Alright. Thank you. I yield back.

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