Lummis backs open banking to curb bank ‘de‑platforming’ of crypto

Senator Cynthia Lummis has put the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on the clock. In a letter to Acting Director Russ Vought, she voiced “strong support” for the bureau’s open‑banking rule and pressed for quick action after the comment window closed.

Cynthia Lummis’s message is simple: major banks have restricted access “for political reasons,” including against digital‑asset firms, and a clear API‑first regime is needed, so consumers – not incumbents – decide which apps can connect.

Open banking is the plumbing of on‑ and off‑ramps. Standardized, secure APIs replace brittle ad‑hoc links and screen‑scraping (а method of extracting data from software, websites, or applications when there is no official API. Instead of querying a database or service directly, the program "looks" at the screen like a human and copies the displayed information.)

For crypto, that’s how fiat transfers, exchange hookups and stablecoin top‑ups stay reliable. Lummis argues that without enforceable rules, banks can still throttle connections or impose terms that make access costly and fragile. The rule’s path has been bumpy – proposed in 2022, finalized in Oct. 2024, then challenged in court and sent back for reconsideration – but she frames now as decision time.

Her letter landed alongside filings from fintech and crypto trade groups stressing that users own their financial data. Bank lobbies counter that mandating open access without tighter third-party oversight fraud and forces banks to open systems they’ve spent billions securing. Lummis says security and liability must be clear, but warns that letting banks filter by category would recreate “Operation Choke Point” dynamics, where lawful businesses are stranded by policy rather than risk.

So what would a strong §1033 actually change? For users, it means cleaner, permission‑based links between bank accounts and wallets; fewer broken ACH connections; clearer responsibility when something fails. For crypto firms – a predictable, auditable path into the banking system, reducing reliance on workarounds. For banks: common technical standards and narrower room to de‑risk entire sectors by shutting off data pipes.

Timing matters. This year’s stop‑start access to on‑ramps showed how concentrated banking partners become single points of failure. A firm rule that standardizes APIs and assigns responsibilities could stabilize flows into spot ETFs, exchanges and stablecoin ecosystems – while a watered‑down version that preserves broad bank vetoes would keep the rails themselves volatile.

The Federal Reserve’s Payments Innovation Conference sketched a complementary path on money movement: Governor Christopher J. Waller floated a limited‑access, payment‑only connection to Fed rails for eligible fintech and crypto firms. Together, a robust CFPB data‑sharing rule and the Fed’s exploration of slimmer payment access would shift the system toward regulated, interoperable interfaces between banks and crypto infrastructure – with user consent and security, not politics, determining who gets through the pipe.