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Israeli insolence: when the banks do not give up our information
Get to know the battle of the mighty that has been pushed to the margins of the news: the banks are using a pressure cooker to remove the open banking reform from the Arrangements Law.
Why do they think our private information actually belongs to them and why do they want us to pay them to use it that will save us money?
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Banks
reform
Arrangements Law
Edith Silman
Michael Bitton
Liat Ron
Sunday, 29 August 2021, 09:07 Updated: 09:26
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Let's say you broke down from your cellular company, and you wanted to move to a new company. After long and exhausting persuasion attempts, the customer retention representative realizes he has a business with a difficult customer, and says, "No problem dear. Switch to competitors, but your contact list remains with us."
It is likely that as soon as you go crazy, you will wash him with a shower of shouts that will make him run to the boss, because how dare he threaten you with something that belongs to you in law.
Without knowing, you are in the same situation right now, every day. The bank holds your most important data, exactly the equivalent of the list of phone numbers without which you are lost, and is not willing to let them share it with others, even if you ask very nicely. It's just that on cellphones it seems outrageous to us, and at the bank, somehow, we're getting it on the agenda.
This is where the open banking reform comes in, where it explodes into something logical and simple: all the information in the bank, transactions in the account, to whom you paid, when and how, how much money you have in the account, whether you are in deficit and how much you managed to save on deposits.
That is, if you want to, say, share with the credit card company you are debating whether to go to to get a quote, another bank, an app that will help you plan your home expenses, all you need to do is give an instruction and the bank will be obliged to pass the information to them immediately.
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Banks are trying to torpedo our ability to save money by passing on our information to competitors (Photo: ShutterStock)
Today the situation is reversed and absurd.
The information, which is your power, is in the hands of the banks, and you, the customers, have to beg to get it to compare prices and pay less, as you do when you compare health prices, insurance and car prices.
A year ago - and five years after the Strum Committee recommended that it go ahead - the Bank of Israel decided to take action, formulated the open banking reform and divided it into three stages, to make it easier for banks to part with our information, as absurd as it sounds.
In the first step you can share the balances and transactions in the account, then, what happens to your credit cards and in the end, the step that makes the bankers the most intense stomach ache, Geveld, give access to information on deposits, savings, information on credit and loans, and securities data, All of you, mine, ours ... I emphasize again.
Michael Bitton, Chairman of the Economics Committee. He and the chairman of the coalition, Idit Silman, fought to introduce the reform into the Arrangements Law (Photo: Reuven Castro)
The lobbyists succeeded, but two MKs did not give up
A vote on the reform introduced into the Arrangements Law is scheduled for next Thursday. For more than a month now, the banks have been waging a war of attrition so that it does not come to fruition, and if it happens to pass, then make it unprofitable for customers.
The best lobbyists were hired in huge sums and sent to attack, persuade, whisper and pressure the 61 Knesset members needed to torpedo the initiative, of which quite a few are "green" and relatively crisp. In fact, they have already managed to throw him out, but MKs Edith Silman and Michael Bitton, fought back and forcibly returned the reform to the Arrangements Law.
The banks, for their part, present two arguments. One, quite understandably, is fear of unwanted leaks, hacks and cyber attacks, which, they claim, stem from a sincere concern for information and you. They also insist that the responsibility for the information leakage falls on the body from which it was leaked.
The second argument, stems from a concern in their own pocket: how much will each request for information cost, are four free and the rest paid, or payment from the first request.
Gil Bar-Dea, the director of the digital bank
, said and rightly so: "The information belongs to the customers, is it conceivable that they will be required to pay directly or indirectly for information belonging to them."
Right now, reform is faltering.
The three banks' lobbying offices are entering the final line and doing everything to pull it out of the law of arrangements at the last minute and keep your cheese and monopolistic control of the market in their hands, perpetuate the outdated financial system and prevent any technological innovation and especially competition.
If the "open banking" is approved, you can switch from bank to bank at the push of a button and not experience the system of foreclosures, paperwork, and anguish spread over a good few months, a punishment for daring to please and disconnect from your bank, which is just one of the reasons.
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