Berlin – November 04, 2026 -- The European Commission has withdrawn its proposal for a Financial Data Access Act (FIDA), and Germany's cooperative banking association BVR is welcoming the decision as a chance to reset Open Finance in Europe.
BVR maintains that the goal of a competitive European data economy and secure, customer-centric data exchange remains valid. In its view, the withdrawal allows Open Finance, the secure sharing of financial data, to be reoriented toward customer benefit, practical usability and existing market standards.
BVR says FIDA would have opened European financial data to non-European tech giants
BVR board member Tanja Müller-Ziegler framed the withdrawal as a matter of digital sovereignty. She argued that sovereignty means reducing dependencies rather than creating new ones, and that FIDA would have given large non-European technology groups access to European financial data.
giroAPI is cited as the market-led alternative
BVR points to giroAPI as an example of solutions emerging from the market. Through the project, the German banking industry (Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft) is creating European standards for secure data exchange between banks and other financial service providers. The cooperative financial group is actively involved.
BVR argues that private-sector solutions of this kind should be given room to develop and should serve as the starting point for the next phase of Open Finance.