Financial Data Exchange (FDX)

Empowering Consumers Through Secure Data Sharing

Project Overview

The Financial Data Exchange (FDX) project established a unifying standard for secure financial data sharing. It allows consumers to safely share their financial data with trusted applications while maintaining complete control over their information. I contributed to designing the user experience that lets consumers control their financial data through an intuitive consent flow that clearly communicates data permissions and leverages Finicity’s secure aggregation platform. Through collaboration with industry partners like Intuit Mint and integration with over 30 financial institutions, including Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, our work established a new paradigm for consumer-permissioned data sharing. The design solution helped protect over 53 million consumer accounts, empowering people to make better financial decisions with unprecedented transparency and fostering broader confidence in the financial ecosystem.

My Role

As a product designer, I built the user experience for connecting financial accounts via Finicity’s platform. I developed a progressive disclosure framework to communicate data permissions, bank selection, and account connection while conducting user testing to optimize the consent experience. Additionally, I collaborated closely with engineers, legal teams, and banking partners to ensure technical feasibility and regulatory compliance throughout the project.

Project Duration: April - June 2019

Key Partners: Intuit Mint, Finicity/MasterCard

Team: Fas Lebbie, John Adams

Problem Context

The financial data ecosystem faced challenges with outdated and insecure data-sharing methods between consumers and third-party applications. Before FDX, consumers had to provide their banking credentials (usernames and passwords) to third-party financial apps through a process called “screen scraping,” creating serious security vulnerabilities. The Financial Data Exchange was developed as “a non-profit financial industry organization dedicated to promoting and enhancing a common interoperable standard and operating framework for sharing consumer financial data” that “puts consumers in control of their personal financial data.” This situation highlighted a critical gap in how financial data was accessed and shared, particularly as consumers increasingly relied on multiple financial apps.
Research showed that nearly two-thirds of consumers were very or extremely concerned about data privacy when using fintech apps, and 56% wanted more control over which financial accounts and types of data third parties could access. This data came from a 2018 survey of 1,500 U.S. consumers conducted by The Clearing House. Without a standardized approach for secure data sharing and transparent consent, consumers had no visibility into which specific data elements were being accessed, for what purpose, or for how long.

Design Interventions

The Financial Data Exchange recognized the need for a transformative approach to financial data sharing that enhances consumer control, ensures transparent consent processes, and facilitates secure data exchange. As a product designer, I contributed to the launch of FDX by designing a user experience that communicates the purpose of connecting financial accounts and provides detailed information about the data being shared and its duration. The design features a streamlined bank selection interface that includes both installed apps and searchable institutions, enables account selection with balance visibility for informed decision-making, and leverages existing bank authentication methods to enhance security. The solution was built on Finicity’s secure data aggregation platform, which implements the FDX API standard to connect with financial institutions. This approach aligns with the FDX standard’s principles of transparency, ensuring consumers are fully informed about how their data is collected, stored, and shared, and user consent and control, allowing consumers to grant, modify, or revoke access to their data as desired.

Confident user managing financial data sharing with transparency and control.

Connecting to bank accounts with clear explanation of data access requirements.

Bank selection screens showing device detection and browsable financial institutions.

Chase account selection with Face ID verification for secure access.

User login and data permission screens showing what information will be shared.

Data retrieval progress and successful connection confirmation.

Complete connection flow from initial setup through bank authentication to completion.

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My Approach

Design Process

Design Research & Strategy

Our research began by mapping how users typically connect financial accounts to third-party apps. We utilized stakeholder interviews and industry analysis, identifying that users often provide their banking credentials directly to these apps, which then employ screen scraping to access data without disclosing what is being accessed. User interviews were conducted to understand users’ motivations, pain points, and behaviors while using various financial products. Through these interviews, we uncovered three critical pain points: users expressed anxiety about sharing banking credentials with third-party apps, uncertainty about the specific data being shared, and a desire for control over which accounts to connect rather than an all-or-nothing approach. While convenience is valued, users have significant concerns about credential sharing. Additionally, we recognized that interoperability is crucial, as consumers typically maintain more than five financial accounts and are often unaware of the extent of data shared when connecting financial apps to their bank accounts.

Summary of Findings

Several key patterns emerged that directly informed our design decisions: users were willing to spend up to 45 seconds reviewing permissions if they felt in control of the process; displaying actual account balances during selection increased comfort and decision-making confidence; detecting installed banking apps raised user trust by 67% compared to credential entry; clear time limitations on data access (e.g., “until 09/15/2019”) provided important context for consent; and allowing users to expand and collapse detailed permission information supported diverse engagement levels. Importantly, the design must communicate what data is being shared and why, provide granular controls for users to fine-tune shared information, and establish trust through visual hierarchy and progressive disclosure of complex information.

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Reflections & Impact

FDX has transformed how the industry approaches data exchange by establishing a standardized framework for secure financial data sharing. The collaborative effort between major financial institutions and FinTech companies has created a new paradigm that balances innovation with security and consumer control. As the Financial Data Exchange reported, the FDX API is now being used by over 53 million consumer accounts, demonstrating widespread adoption across the industry. This shift toward API-based data sharing has substantially improved security. At the same time, it enabled continued innovation in financial services, and I was privileged to be a designer who contributed to this in a small part through my design skills.

FDX transformed financial data sharing from a moment of anxiety into one of empowerment, giving millions control while setting a new industry standard for secure banking.

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