By Rachel Kaser
A report from the Wall Street Journal today revealed Facebook was attempting to gain detailed financial information from its users banks. Oof, in how many languages can I say no?
According to the Journal, Facebook has approached the likes of Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup with an eye toward partnership. In exchange for users banking data, it proposed to offer a banks customers the ability to conduct business within Facebook itself.
In response, a company spokesperson told TNW any reports it had requested transaction data werent true, and the company asked for the partnership in order to incorporate banking chatbots into the Messenger app:
Like many online companies with commerce businesses, we partner with banks and credit card companies to offer services like customer chat or account management. The idea is that messaging with a bank can be better than waiting on hold over the phone and its completely opt-in. Were not using this information beyond enabling these types of experiences not for advertising or anything else.
Given what we know about Facebooks approach to consumer data, just from the last year or so, I think Ill take a 20-minute phone wait over giving them my banking details.
Were not even six months out from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the press blew the lid off a series of in-house mishaps involving users personal data finding its way into malicious hands or at least having the potential to find its way to them. These data privacy scandals appeared to be at least one major catalyst behind Facebooks precipitous plunge on the stock market at the end of last month.
Facebook has also never denied that it gathers a truly dizzying amount of data on its users. And now it wants that information to include banking data? Even if that doesnt include info on all transactions, its more than a little scary to think of Facebook whose name in this sphere is basically mud having access to that data.
For what its worth, the banks might not be open to the idea. A spokesperson for Wells Fargo told NY Daily News: Maintaining the privacy of customer data is of paramount importance to Wells Fargo. We are not actively engaged in data-sharing conversations with Facebook.