When you conduct financial transactions online, you often risk exposing your personal identifying information (PII) to criminals who can use that information for identity theft, fraud, and scams.
Types of sensitive personal identifying information that criminals target includes:
- Social Security number
- Date of birth
- Home address
- Phone number
- Driver’s license and state ID numbers
- Medical information
- Mother’s maiden name
- Bank account usernames and passwords
- Passwords
- Financial account numbers
To ensure your personal identifying information remains secure during financial transactions, more mortgage lenders, banks, financial institutions, and fintech companies, including FinLocker, use consumer-permissioned data to keep your PII safe.
What is consumer-permissioned data?
Consumer-permissioned data is when you permit a lender, for example, to securely copy the transactional data in your checking, savings, and investments accounts. The process is simple: enter your username, password, or other authentication credentials directly into your financial institution’s electronic portal yourself.
The company or bank you are granting permission to use your financial data does not retain your username and password. Instead, the information is securely transferred to the lender’s application or financial management app from your financial accounts.
FinLocker has “read-only” access to the financial accounts with FinLocker, meaning FinLocker or your sponsoring financial institution cannot alter it. We cannot initiate or modify any financial transaction.
Reasons why you might want to use consumer-permissioned data:
- Monitor your credit score
- Connect your bank account to create a budget in your FinLocker or other personal financial management app
- Send or receive money to family or friends from your bank account to their bank account via an online money transfer
- Provide your bank or mortgage lender with your financial transactions to fulfill the assets requirement of your loan application
- Set up automatic direct debit payments between your bank and your loan servicer company for your student, car, or mortgage loans
Why using consumer-permissioned data is safer than providing paper documents.
Your first reaction to a request to enter your username and password into a financial management app or online application may be one of apprehension. However, using consumer-permissioned data will be significantly more secure than emailing or mailing pages of your personal and financial documents. Email can be hacked, and mail can be stolen, making you vulnerable to criminal activity. What’s more, electronically providing your personal and financial information gives the lender the ability to make faster, more accurate decisions.
Fintech companies are responsible for adhering to data privacy laws, which makes them responsible for securely transferring and storing the data you have provided.
FinLocker’s security policy is available on our website and inside the FinLocker app at https://finlocker.com/security.
How to feel confident that the financial service you are using is secure
FinLocker takes the security of consumer-permissioned data seriously. In fact, data security and privacy are our top priorities. We use a variety of state-of-the-art technologies to encrypt your personally identifiable information (PII) during the transfer from your web browser to your FinLocker account and your lender when you decide to share your financial data for a loan transaction.
Additionally, FinLocker conducts annual audits such as the SOC 2 Type 2 audit, which tests the effectiveness of a FinLocker’s security, confidentiality, and operational controls. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has developed the Service Organization Controls (SOC) framework, a framework for controls that safeguard the confidentiality and privacy of information stored and processed.
When it comes down to it, personal and financial data security impacts everyone. You want to know that your PII is safe and that the companies you share your data with are keeping it secure. It is recommended that you review the security policy of each financial service provider before you use them.
