Winklevoss’ broadside landed ten days after Bloomberg first disclosed that JPMorgan has distributed price sheets to data aggregators outlining usage‑based fees for application‑programming‑interface (API) calls that move customer data to external apps. Reuters subsequently confirmed the plan and published the bank’s initial defense: “We’ve invested significant resources creating a valuable and secure system that protects customer data. We’ve had productive conversations and are working with the entire ecosystem to ensure we’re all making the necessary investments in the infrastructure that keeps our customers safe.”
The timing is delicate. Last October the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized its Personal Financial Data Rights Rule under Section 1033 of the Dodd‑Frank Act, requiring banks to hand over a customer’s checking and credit‑card data—at no cost—whenever the customer asks a third party to retrieve it.
Hours after the rule’s release, the Bank Policy Institute and the Kentucky Bankers Association sued the CFPB in federal court, arguing that regulators had exceeded their authority and jeopardized data security. The case is pending in Lexington, but under the Trump administration the CFPB has taken the unusual step of telling the judge that the rule it wrote “should be vacated,” a reversal that critics say emboldened JPMorgan to move ahead with a pay‑to‑play model.
JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon insists the fees simply recoup infrastructure costs. “It costs a lot of money to set up the APIs and stuff like that to run the system,” he told analysts on last week’s earnings call, adding that third parties “should pay for accessing the banking system and payment rails,” according to Payments Dive.
Behind the rhetoric lie concrete stakes for crypto exchanges, which rely on Plaid, MX, Yodlee and similar gateways to verify customer accounts and pull in fiat. If data aggregators absorb new fees, they are expected to pass at least part of the cost to high‑frequency users—including exchanges that automate cash sweeps—raising onboarding friction just as US regulators are inching toward clearer securities guidance for digital‑asset platforms.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $118,620.
