Facebook wants banks to share your personal finances: Report
Facebook has asked large U.S. banks to share financial information about their customers as it seeks to offer new services to users, according to The Wall Street Journal, while a Facebook spokesperson said the story “implies incorrectly that we are actively asking financial services companies for financial transaction data.”
In a statement sent to FOX Business, the spokesperson said, “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 it's completely opt-in. We're not using this information beyond enabling these types of experiences – not for advertising or anything else.”
Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that over the past year the social media giant has requested personal financial details such as credit card transactions and checking account balances from banks including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and U.S. Bancorp, in an effort to create offerings for bank customers on messenger.
People familiar with the matter told the Journal that Facebook has considered a feature that would show its users their account balances while it also pitched fraud alerts.
In a statement to FOX Business Wells Fargo said, "Maintaining the privacy of customer data is of paramount importance to Wells Fargo. We are not actively engaged in data-sharing conversations with Facebook." Citigroup and U.S. Bancorp hadn't returned comment by the time of publication. JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.
This article haas been updated