New protections from evolving consumer data right (CDR) legislation mean data-hungry companies need to step back and consider personal data as “toxic” while they rearchitect consumer relationships on pillars of trust, according to the head of a fast-growing privacy firm that is positioning itself as a data middleman.

“As an industry we seem to have forgotten that it’s not the individual’s job to have to take actions to bring back privacy and security,” Julian Ranger, chairman and founder of personal data-management firm digi.me, told CSO Australia.

“It’s our job as the technology industry to bring back the privacy and the security.”

Australian neobank Xinja has appointed former New York-based neobank Moven executive John Pountain as CTO. Xinja – a bank built for mobile and with no branches – says Pountain is helping build the business with technology that will “change banking for Australians, who never want to walk into a bank branch or join a bank queue”. “Our customers have told us that, as millennials, they do everything differently to their parents, except banking,” said Xinja Bank chief executive officer and founder Eric Wilson.

Across APAC consumers increasingly prefer digital channels for financial services. The trend, combined with regulatory changes that lower barriers to entry, is helping digital-only banks overcome incumbents’ traditional trust and scale advantages, according to new research from Forrester.

Nearly four months after it lapsed in Parliament due to inaction, the passage of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) into law will give consumers unprecedented access to their financial information – as soon as the banks can get their acts together. Pre-election delays to the long-awaited Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill 2019 led to delays in implementation of the CDR, which will underscore an open-banking regime that will give consumers unprecedented access to the information that banks hold on them.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has restated its plan to invest more than $5 billion mostly on technology over the next five years, to maintain its leadership position in digital banking.

The bank today also announced an investment in a ‘buy now, pay later’ fintech, and detailed efforts to fend off the threat of neobanks through improved digital offerings.

In the wake of the Banking Royal Commission and now the passage of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) scheme just last week, transparency, compliance and consideration of customer privacy are more important than ever in Australia.

Last week, an important step was taken towards the implementation of open banking, a shift many believe will deliver revolutionary and “long-awaited change” to the Australian financial system. However, the impact will likely be negligible if action is not taken at both an industry and governmental level, according to Poli Konstantinidis, Experian A/NZ executive GM of credit services and decision analytics.

The Consumer Data Right laws are “very complex and messy” and plans to amend them later in the year may lead to further problems, digital rights advocates have said. The Consumer Data Right (CDR) legislation, which paves the way for open banking and other data sharing regimes, was passed unamended by the Senate with bipartisan support last Thursday night, after Labor decided to vote for it despite having “deep concerns”.