Envestnet, Wells Fargo Clinch Data Sharing Deal

Wells Fargo has become the latest data sharing agreement win for Envestnet | Yodlee as the companies announced a pact Thursday they said would allow Wells Fargo customers to “more securely and seamlessly share” their financial data with the more than 1,400 third-party financial applications on the fintech firm’s Financial Data Aggregation Platform.

The deal follows similar data access deals that Envestnet | Yodlee signed with financial firms Charles Schwab in April, Citi and JPMorgan Chase.

“We will launch the experience with select Envestnet | Yodlee customers this year, and anticipate full integration in the next couple of years,” Wells Fargo said Friday, adding this marks its 17th data exchange agreement to date.

The data sharing capabilities are being powered by an application programming interface and the agreement “represents a significant step in Wells Fargo’s journey to establish API-based data exchange agreements with third parties,” the firms said. Wells Fargo plans to transition 99% of current third-party financial app screen-scraping to an API-based data exchange, it said.

“In the future, Wells Fargo customers using financial apps that leverage the Envestnet | Yodlee Platform will have greater control over and transparency into the financial information they share with these apps through Wells Fargo’s Control Tower digital experience,” the firms said.

Control Tower, available in the Wells Fargo Mobile Banking app and via online banking, helps consumer and small-business customers “better manage their increasingly complex online financial lives by providing a single view of their Wells Fargo digital financial footprint,” the companies said. Within Control Tower, customers will be able to turn on and off data sharing with Envestnet | Yodlee-supported apps and also select the information they want to share with these apps, they noted.

The pact “enables even more consumer choice, protection, and insight, ultimately giving consumers more control and an improved overall financial wellbeing — something that is vital during a particularly uncertain economic landscape,” according to Chad A. Wiechers, senior vice president of Data Access & Management at Envestnet | Yodlee.

Calling the deal “a positive for both companies,” Joel Bruckenstein, head of the Technology Tools for Today (T3) hub, told ThinkAdvisor Friday by phone: “This essentially benefits everybody but the real winner, in my opinion, is the consumer.”

— Check out Envestnet, Yodlee Sued Over Consumer Data Collection on ThinkAdvisor.