Treasury is planning to change the way joint accounts are treated under the Consumer Data Right rules, moving from an opt-in approach to data sharing to an opt-out approach.
Joint bank accounts have proved to be a problem for data recipients gathering customer data under the open banking regime. Under the current rules, each joint account holder must opt in before joint account data can be shared.
While one joint account holder may initiate a consent process with an accredited data recipient to share account data, the process will not proceed if any other joint account holders have not also indicated that they are willing to share account data.
Treasury said ADRs have complained that the current approach “introduces excessive friction leading to unfulfilled data sharing requests” and would ultimately discourage businesses from offering CDR-based services.
Treasury has released a consultation paper setting out its plan for an opt-out approach, which would apply to banking and other sector of the economy as CDR is extended.
The proposed opt-out approach would allow an individual joint account holder to independently share data on the joint account by consenting to an accredited person collecting and using the data from the joint account.
Either joint account holder would be able to override this setting at any time and switch off the data sharing.
All joint account holders would be notified of any data sharing arrangements and of their right to stop sharing arrangements.