Denmark’s Forsikring & Pension (F&P) has said it believes the European Commission’s (EC) proposal on data sharing in the legal package on digital finance goes too far and takes too much of a scattered approach.

However, it stated that it was good that some clear frameworks were being set up around the sharing of data and on which companies can access customers’ data.

The EC’s ‘Financial data access and payments packsage’ aims to give consumers in the financial sector increased access to share their data with other companies.

F&P added that the upcoming regulation on open finance must give customers increased access to share their data with others.

“We are critical of the very broad scope of application that the commission sets out,” commented F&P digitisation policy manager, Sigrid Floor Toft.

“The proposal defines customer data very broadly, and in our area it is both insurance data and data regarding pension rights that are covered.”

The EC’s proposal includes both personal data and other customer-related data that come into scope in an interaction with a financial institution.

F&P stated that this was a “problem” as it also includes the assessments and analyses that are “central elements” in pension companies’ value propositions to customers, and the association believed it was not reasonable to demand firms to hand these over to competitors.

“We would have liked to see you start with fewer, but central data, to see if it even works as intended instead of launching with a ‘big bang’,” said Floor Toft.

“There is a risk that it ends up being very expensive for the industry and its customers, without really adding value.”

Furthermore, F&P raised concerns that no restrictions were proposed for large tech companies’ opportunities to retrieve data, warning that the industry could spend a lot of money making data available that is either not being used or being used by tech companies as part of data harvesting.

However, there are requirements that the data exchange must take place through ‘data schemes’, where requirements for data formats and APIs are jointly developed by organisations involved.

Additionally, only data users approved by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority can access customer data.

F&P described Danish pension and insurance companies as being in a “good place” as the industry already has Pensionsinfo, a “good example” of how the industry has collaborated to establish secure frameworks for data sharing.

“We had hoped that the need for data sharing across sectors would also be considered,” Floor Toft added.

“It is important for our industry that customers also have better opportunities for to share data from e.g. cars and to ensure better digital access to e.g. climate and health data. This is not included in this bill, however.”

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