Eaton Fires

For the past 20 years, I have lived in Pasadena, CA. While we have had our share of windstorms and wildfires, last week’s Eaton Fire was a tremendously devastating and destructive disaster. My family and I are very fortunate to be safe, with an intact home to return to. However, our entire community is suffering, and if you haven’t already, I would ask you to consider supporting the community.

I (Totavi) will donate all new or renewed paid CardsFTW subscriptions through the end of February to Pasadena Community Foundation’s Eaton Canyon Fire Relief and Recovery Fund. Read more at https://www.totavi.com/eaton. You can find instructions on that page to make a direct donation, or simply subscribe below, and we’ll send that money right away.

Open Banking Standards

The CFPB continues to churn out content in the waning days of the Biden administration. From suing Capital One and Experian, to finalizing the medical debt rule, and proposing to interpret EFTA to apply to rewards (yikes, that’s another post), they are wasting none of their final days.

The big one I want to touch on is open banking standards. The agency approved the application of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) to be a standard-setting body under the 1033 data rules. More than a decade after the passage of Dodd-Frank, which required data access, we are now starting to get to the point where this could really work. We’ve touched on this topic before, including in our guest post from Andrew Grant recently in CardsFTW #132: Rewards and 1033. However, this announcement means we might be starting to see true industry standards and open access.

Key aspects of these approvals include FDX promoting true open banking and banning pay-to-play, reporting on the adoption of its standards, and, perhaps most importantly, making the reports freely available to the public.

A common problem with industry standards is that they are hidden behind a firewall. Want to know how ACH works with all the details? You’re supposed to get that from NACHA. Want to know about the details of a credit report? You better have a deal with Experian, Equifax, or Transunion. Somehow, this data finds its way around, but it creates many hurdles and confusion for folks working in the industry. Whether people are starting companies or just trying to get smart, these closed standards are a barrier to innovation.

With open standards, anyone, including a small developer, can understand how to code for the data APIs and other tools for big banks. These folks are where the next interesting budgeting app will come from. Open standards will allow students or recent graduates to educate themselves on the topic and engage in work in the field.

I don’t think open standards harm the business of the big banks involved. Holding and moving money (creating the data, perhaps) is very hard for a small player to do. An open banking standard itself doesn’t make someone leave Chase. It takes a better banking product to do so. Some banks think that open banking will allow them to steal customers easily. Will PNC win users just because of open banking? No. They will need a better banking product, and open banking might make it easier.

That isn’t where my interest lies, though. I think consumers deserve to be able to aggregate their financial data in one place so that they can better understand it. Few consumers bank in only one place, and the open data capabilities will allow them to understand a critical part of their lives. I also don’t think it's the death knell of Plaid or others; building the APIs may not be worth it, but at least folks can understand the data and build it if they want to.

Let’s see what the CFPB does in its final week!

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Goodbye, Dosh

Dosh, the card-linked marketing platform acquired by Cardlytics, is closing its consumer platform on February 27th.

(BTW it’s this Dosh, not that Dosh – again with the naming fintech people.)

I’m disappointed to see Dosh shutting down. The app was a user-friendly take on merchant-funded card-linked offers, which have grown significantly in popularity. Over the years, I managed to earn a total of $256.17 through it! While I don’t have detailed insight into the decision, I’ve heard speculation about a shift from B2C to B2B over the years.

Cardlytics, an early card-linking pioneer, acquired Dosh in 2021 for $275 million! Poor Cardlytics. On that day, the Nasdaq-listed company closed at $128.98 per share, near its all-time high of $157.18. On Tuesday, January 14, 2025, the stock closed at $2.85 and has a market cap of just $144MM. Ouch.

It may simply be that Cardlytics is bleeding money and can’t support Dosh, or this could point to more. I do know that card-linked marketing isn’t dead by any means. Newer providers are finding ways to bring these offers to more folks, and it’s worth a deeper dive in a future newsletter. If you want more of a primer, head back to CardsFTW #5: Card-Linked Offers.

Dear Dosh, I will miss you.

BofA Tracker

Bank of America is rolling out a quarterly spend tracker for its Customized Cash Rewards Card. It’s not on my app yet, but a friend shared this screenshot:

Lots of room to earn more rewards!

Many other quarterly cards (Chase Freedom, Discover it) have similar features, but they have long been missing from the BofA card. With these cards, I’ve always wondered what the bank’s internal data says about behavior. Do users who maximize these bonuses each quarter love their card and use it for other things? Or, like me, do they game it? Is a tracker good for the bank in terms of card loyalty and spend, or is it making the tracking hard to find to the bank’s benefit? (Previously, for BofA, you had to go to your reward transactions screen and add up totals or wait until you hit the limit and it told you on a particular transaction.)

Until I have an opportunity to run a card like this, I guess I will keep wondering. Related, will banks increase quarterly limits due to inflation? If you know, let me know.

Me, Elsewhere

• I sat down with Lithic’s Reggie Young on the Fintech Layer Cake podcast in December. Take a listen.
• Open Banker published my opinion essay on the unintended consequences of the Durbin Act yesterday. Read it here.

CardsFTW

CardsFTW, released weekly on Wednesdays, offers insights and analysis on new credit and debit card industry products for consumers and providers. CardsFTW is authored and published by Matthew Goldman and the team at Totavi, a boutique consulting firm specializing in fintech product management & marketing. We bring real operational experience that varies from the earliest days of a startup to high-growth phases and public company leadership. Visit www.totavi.com to learn more.

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