Open Banking Consent Management

Open Banking

Open Banking, as part of Australia’s Consumer Data Right framework, provides a fast, accurate and secure way for clients to share their financial data with their financial counsellor, removing the need to print or download bank statements.

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Financial Counselling Australia (FCA) is currently trialling this technology in an Open Banking pilot program with several financial counselling agencies around Australia.

If you choose to use Open Banking to share your banking data, here is some information to help you understand how it works and how you stay in control.

Background

The Consumer Data Right is a government program that gives you control over sharing your data, such as your bank transactions and loans, with organisations that you choose to receive it.

An Accredited Data Recipient (ADR) is an organization approved under the CDR framework to receive and manage consumer data securely. ADRs are required to adhere to strict privacy and security rules, ensuring that the consumer’s data is used only with their consent. ADRs and their partner organisations are expected to:

  • Transparently disclose how data is used.
  • Ensure secure storage and transfer of consumer data.
  • Implement privacy safeguards for consumer consent and control.

Financial counsellors are specifically authorised under the CDR framework, as Trusted Advisers, to receive data from consumers through an ADR. This is because financial counsellors have a one-on-one relationship with the consumers they are supporting and are already subject to strict professional standards, including confidentiality and privacy.

The FCA is using Basiq, owned by regulated data provider Cuscal, as its ADR partner for purposes of the Open Banking pilot program. Basiq is a well-established and trusted company operating in the Open Banking sector.

Managing your Open Banking Consents

With Open Banking, you control what data you share, who can access it, and how it’s used.

You can give permission—known as “consent”—to organisations like the FCA (on behalf of your financial counsellor) to access your financial data. You can review, change, or withdraw your consent at any time. You can also request the deletion of your data whenever you choose.

Our ADR partner, Basiq, does not view or store your data. Only your financial counsellor can access and use it. However, if you have a joint bank account, other account holders may see that you have shared your data with Financial Counselling Australia.

  • Automatic consent expiry: Your financial counsellor will automatically revoke your consent and stop data sharing when your client relationship ends or 90 days after you first gave consent—whichever comes first.
  • Managing consent through online banking: If you want to review, change, or stop sharing your data sooner, the easiest way is through your online banking or banking app. Look for a section called “Data Sharing”, where you can manage your consent with FCA via Basiq.
  • Revoking consent through your financial counsellor: Alternatively, you can ask your financial counsellor to revoke your consent for you, or they can send you a link to do it yourself.

Our Consent Policy

When you give FCA consent, your financial counsellor only collects and keeps data they reasonably need to provide you with financial counselling support.

For this reason, we have established the following consent parameters:

  • Consent duration 90-days: Your consent for data sharing will remain valid for 90 days which means your consent will automatically expire at 90 days from when you first gave us consent. You can revoke or extend your consent at any time by speaking with your financial counsellor or through your online banking or app.
  • Data retrieval span 90-days: We retrieve 90 days of your historical financial data when you give us consent.
  • No retention of de-identified data by default: We do not retain your shared data, even de-identified data, on the Basiq platform upon expiration or revocation of your consent.
  • CDR (Open Banking) enabled institutions: We only include Institutions that are Open Banking enabled for you to select from to share your data with us. We will never ask you for your bank log in or password to share your data.

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