On June 7, Wells Fargo announced a partnership with software firm, Xero, that is intended to allow small businesses to share bank information without sharing their bank passwords with third parties, such as Quicken, who provide services to the business customers. The small business customers will log into Xero’s website using a different account designation and password, and select the account information that they want shared with the third party. Wells Fargo’s and Xero’s servers will use a unique token to allow the customer’s bank information to be shared with the third party without the password being shared. Tensions have arisen between some banks and data aggregators used by consumers primarily for aggregation of personal data for budgeting and similar personal uses. Concerns have been raised over the sharing of customer bank passwords and collection by aggregators of more data than is necessary to provide the services. Wells Fargo stated that the partnership with Xero is a blueprint for dealing with other more widely used sites.
