Competition, Banking, and Consumer Finance: Open Markets, Safe Money, and Exit

Contestability before breakup becomes the only tool

Enforcement should protect the competitive process early. Merger presumptions, serial-acquisition review, strong discovery, interim relief, and market studies can act before exclusion becomes irreversible. When a dominant firm controls identity, app distribution, marketplace ranking, data, or payment access, targeted interoperability and nondiscrimination can reopen entry. Structural separation or divestiture remains available when conduct rules cannot remove the conflict.

Enforcers should publish theories, outcomes, remedies, and post-merger results. A failed remedy needs escalation. A successful challenge should leave room for firms to rebut presumptions with specific, verifiable evidence.

Banking as a usable utility with plural providers

FDIC found 5.6 million U.S. households were unbanked in 2023 and 19 million were underbanked. The basic-account guarantee should certify many providers under one service floor and compensate the cost of high-need accounts transparently. The public fallback activates where no certified provider serves a person on fair terms. It does not allocate credit or monitor lawful purchases.

FedNow already provides round-the-clock settlement for participating institutions. Access should become broadly available through banks and credit unions, paired with consumer protections that assign losses according to control over authentication, warnings, account recovery, and transaction reversal. Fast settlement cannot become a fast path for irreversible fraud.

Data portability with a privacy firewall

Financial data rights can increase switching and competition. They can also create an ecosystem of credential theft, behavioral profiling, and endless third-party access. Providers should offer standardized APIs, strong authentication, granular consent, purpose and retention limits, security certification, access logs, revocation, deletion, and clear liability. Screen scraping should sunset as reliable interfaces become available.

The current federal personal-financial-data rule faces a court stay and an active rulemaking process. Congress should establish the durable right and privacy floor directly, leaving technical standards to an accountable, multi-stakeholder process.

Trade-offs

Stronger merger enforcement can block efficient combinations and create uncertainty. Public account access and instant payments cost money and attract fraud. Credit ceilings may reduce high-risk borrowing. Interoperability creates security work. Safe-liquidity alternatives, rebuttable rules, regulatory sandboxes, proportional compliance, security certification, and retrospective evidence address those burdens. The compact accepts some foregone transactions and credit products where their returns depend on lock-in, confusion, or repeated distress.