Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024.
Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase says fintech middlemen — the companies that have helped a new generation of financial apps connect with traditional checking accounts — are flooding the bank’s systems with unnecessary data requests.
“Aggregators are accessing customer data multiple times daily, even when the customer is not actively using the app,” a JPMorgan systems employee wrote last week in an internal memo to retail payments head Melissa Feldsher. “These access requests are massively taxing our systems.”
Of 1.89 billion data requests from middlemen hitting JPMorgan’s systems in June, only 13% were initiated by a customer for transactions, according to the memo, which was seen by CNBC.
The majority of data pulls, known as API calls, were for purposes ranging from helping fintech companies improve their products or prevent fraud to other efforts including harvesting data for sale, said a person with knowledge of the memo who declined to be identified amid talks between JPMorgan and the fintechs.
JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, is preparing to charge the middlemen new fees for access to systems that it says are increasingly costly to maintain. Negotiations between JPMorgan and the fintech middlemen are ongoing, but the new fees could start as soon as October, said people with knowledge of the matter.
The bank’s move could lead to upheaval in the fintech ecosystem, which flourished as aggregators including Plaid and MX connected traditional banks with newer arrivals. The API access had been free for years, which enabled the fintech upstarts to offer accounts with no-fee checking or trading services.
The situation changed in May after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a motion in support of a banking industry lawsuit seeking to end the so-called “open banking” rule.
That rule, finalized by the Biden-era CFPB in the waning months of that administration, mandated that banks had to provide data to authorized parties for free. A week after the rule’s passage, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called on bankers to “fight back” against what he said were unfair regulations.
Surging volumes
News this month that JPMorgan was planning to charge for customer data, first reported by Bloomberg, led to accusations from venture capital investors and fintech and crypto executives that JPMorgan was engaging in “anti-competitive, rent-seeking behavior” by putting up paywalls to customer data.
But JPMorgan says it bears the rising costs from maintaining the infrastructure needed for the surge in volumes, as well as elevated fraud claims linked to payments made in the fintech ecosystem.
The total volume of API calls received by JPMorgan has more than doubled in the past two years, according to the memo.
Transactions involving money sent over electronic ACH transactions were 69% more likely to result in fraud claims if they involved data middlemen, according to the memo.
JPMorgan saw about $50 million in fraud claims from ACH transactions initiated through aggregators, a figure the bank expects to triple within 5 years.
Among the 13 fintech companies tracked in the bank’s memo, more than half of all June activity, with 1.08 billion API requests, came from a single company. Though the firms aren’t named, CNBC has learned that the largest player represented in the data is Plaid.
JPMorgan’s data show that just 6% of Plaid’s API calls were initiated by customers.
Plaid co-founders William Hockey and Zach Perret
Source: Plaid
Granting access
Plaid said in a statement to CNBC that this figure “misrepresents how data access works” because all activity begins when customers grant permission to fintech companies when they sign up for accounts. Of course, many customers don’t closely read the lengthy “Terms and Conditions” pages that contain data-sharing disclosures before opening new accounts.
“Calling a bank’s API when a user is not present once they have authorized a connection is a standard industry practice supported by all major banks in order for consumers to get critical alerts for overdraft fees or suspicious activity,” Plaid told CNBC.
Plaid also said that JPMorgan’s claims of higher fraud among aggregators were “misleading,” though it didn’t elaborate.
“It is not surprising that the volume of data access is increasing alongside demand from consumers for financial tools that are smarter, faster, and more tailored to their needs,” Plaid said.
“To be clear, we believe it is essential that the data sharing ecosystem works for everyone, including consumers, fintech developers, and financial institutions – many of whom leverage open banking in their own products,” the company said.
The proposed fee schedules circulated by JPMorgan could result in Plaid paying $300 million in new annual fees, according to a Forbes report.
The rest of the companies tracked in the JPMorgan document are far smaller entities; only four other middlemen registered more than 100 million monthly API calls.
Bid-ask spread
If the Biden-era “open banking” rule is struck down by the courts, the main question is not whether the middlemen will have to pay for data, but how much they will have to pay.
The back-and-forth between JPMorgan and the middlemen is a private process, spilling into public view, to arrive at a new reality that is acceptable to all.
JPMorgan has had productive conversations with several data aggregators who acknowledge that they can change the way they pull data if it is no longer free, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations.
“I think both sides fully acknowledge there are things they could do to right-size call volume,” this person said.
Fixed-income markets recorded significant re-pricing during the week ending July 25, 2026, as a convergence of strong labor market metrics and surging energy costs drove U.S. Treasury yields higher across all maturities. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed toward 4.70%, reaching its highest point in several months. Institutional bond investors rapidly adjusted portfolio durations as expectations for near-term interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve faded in response to inflation concerns.
The upward shift in sovereign yields reflects a broader fundamental reassessment of global monetary policy. Earlier in the quarter, money markets had priced in a series of rate reductions designed to support economic activity. However, with initial jobless claims falling to 187,000 and crude oil breaching $100 per barrel, fixed-income traders are pricing in a ‘higher-for-longer’ interest rate environment. The inversion between short-term Treasury bills and long-term bonds narrowed, indicating a shift toward term premium expansion.
Rising Treasury yields present both challenges and opportunities for institutional wealth managers. While commercial lenders and mortgage origination volumes face headwinds from elevated borrowing costs, fixed-income investors are locking in attractive real yields on high-quality sovereign and investment-grade corporate bonds. Institutional debt issuers, conversely, are recalibrating their capital structures, opting for shorter-term refinancing instruments or private credit facilities to avoid committing to elevated long-term coupon rates.
Navigating the current bond market landscape demands strict duration management and credit selection. Wealth advisors recommend maintaining flexible fixed-income allocations, combining short-duration Treasuries with inflation-protected securities (TIPS) to shield capital against potential energy-driven inflation spikes while earning dependable nominal income.
Private credit markets reached a pivotal milestone during the week ending July 25, 2026, as non-bank direct lending consortiums captured a record share of middle-market corporate debt originations. With commercial banks maintaining conservative credit standards and public bond yields remaining elevated, corporate borrowers are increasingly turning to private fund managers for customized capital solutions. This expansion marks a permanent structural shift in enterprise finance, establishing private credit as a primary pillar of institutional corporate liquidity.
The acceleration of private credit deals is driven by speed, deal certainty, and flexible terms. Unlike traditional syndicated bank loans that require lengthy underwriting, credit rating approvals, and public roadshows, private direct lenders can structure tailored financing packages within days. Middle-market firms facing upcoming debt maturities are utilizing private debt facilities to execute recapitalizations, strategic acquisitions, and growth capital deployments without risking execution delay in public markets.
However, financial regulators and central bank supervisors are scrutinizing the sector’s rapid growth. Supervisory agencies are evaluating potential systemic risks associated with non-bank leverage, valuation transparency, and liquidity mismatches during economic downturns. Despite regulatory interest, major pension funds, insurance firms, and sovereign wealth entities continue to expand capital allocations to private credit funds, attracted by reliable floating-rate yields that outperform public fixed-income benchmarks.
As private credit matures into a dominant asset class, corporate chief financial officers must evaluate non-bank lenders alongside traditional banking relationships. Direct lending partnerships provide valuable balance sheet resilience, enabling companies to secure flexible financing terms even during periods of public market turbulence.
The landscape of institutional debt markets is undergoing a profound structural shift on July 21, 2026, as major corporate issuers and commercial banks rapidly accelerate the deployment of tokenized debt instruments. Data published by leading capital market consortiums indicates that primary issuances of digital commercial paper and tokenized corporate bonds have reached record volumes this month. By moving legacy debt origination, underwriting, and secondary distribution onto permissioned distributed ledgers, corporate treasurers are unlocking unprecedented operational flexibility and instantaneous cross-border liquidity.
The adoption of tokenized debt is fundamentally altering how enterprise balance sheets manage short-term liquidity needs. Traditional corporate bond settlement cycles historically required multi-day clearing processes involving numerous intermediaries, custodial entities, and clearinghouses. Through programmable smart contracts on distributed ledgers, issuers can now execute atomic settlement—enabling continuous, 24/7 access to institutional capital pools. This instantaneous clearing mechanism drastically reduces counterparty risk, eliminates costly settlement friction, and allows treasury teams to dynamically optimize working capital in real time.
A major catalyst driving this institutional migration is the establishment of comprehensive digital asset regulatory frameworks across major financial hubs. Clear legal guidelines regarding ledger-based securities ownership have provided institutional compliance officers with the regulatory confidence necessary to transition multi-billion-dollar liquidity facilities onto digital platforms. Furthermore, the integration of automated regulatory reporting directly into token smart contracts simplifies ongoing compliance audits, ensuring that secondary market trades automatically enforce investor accreditation limits and tax withholding requirements.
For chief financial officers and institutional portfolio managers, tokenized debt represents a fundamental evolution in fixed-income strategy. Companies that embrace ledger-based debt structures gain direct access to a broader, global base of digital-native institutional investors while substantially reducing borrowing overhead. As ledger interoperability continues to improve across global exchanges, tokenized debt is poised to become the standard infrastructure for global corporate finance.
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