Ten of the largest trade associations in fintech and crypto have called on President Donald Trump to intervene in what they say is a coordinated attack by big banks to stifle innovation and lock out competitors.
In a letter sent on Wednesday, the groups, which include the Blockchain Association, and the Crypto Council for Innovation, warned that JPMorgan’s plan to charge fees for access to consumer banking data threatens to de-bank millions of Americans and could cripple the adoption of stablecoins (USDC, USDT) and self-custody wallets.
At the center of the fight is how Americans fund digital wallets and exchanges. Aggregators like Plaid and MX enable consumers to transfer funds from their bank accounts to platforms like Coinbase or Kraken. These connections rely on direct access to user-permissioned data.
Until now, banks have allowed that access without charging fees. However, JPMorgan has begun informing aggregators that they’ll need to pay for it—reportedly up to $300 million per year for Plaid alone which would amount to more than 75% of company’s revenue.
“Let us be clear: financial data belongs to the American people, not the banks,” the letter reads. “By challenging open banking, the largest banks stand in direct opposition to your vision of making America the financial innovation capital of the world.”
The letter urges the White House to act before July 29, when the administration is due to file a legal brief in the court battle over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s open banking rule.
The CFPB’s open banking rule, finalized in late 2024 as Rule 1033, requires banks to give consumers free access to their account data and allow them to share it with third-party services.
The rule was meant to level the playing field between banks and fintechs. But banks sued to block it on the day it was finalized, and the CFPB has since asked the court to vacate the rule entirely.
In a post on X, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi called JPMorgan’s move a “calculated shift” that turns user-generated data into a toll, warning that the industry is witnessing a familiar pattern of centralization turning into control.
“There is a version of the future where every financial interaction is intermediated by systems that monitor, price, and gate access to your own data,” he wrote. “Crypto presents an alternative. But that alternative is not guaranteed.”
