TD Announces Open Data Partnership with Intuit

Need to Know

• The new partnership will allow TD customers to securely share their banking data to use Intuit’s products, which include TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mint.
• TD will use Intuit’s secure API to transfer data at the customer’s request.
• While TD has its own brand-new accounting tool, the Intuit partnership will allow consumers to continue to use third-party products safely and securely.

Analysis

TD bank consumers will now be able to more securely share banking data with third-party financial products, as the bank today announced a partnership with U.S. fintech company Intuit.

The partnership will allow TD customers to choose what data they share on Intuit’s secure API with third-party financial management products such as Intuit’s TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mint. The ultimate goal, according to TD’s chief digital and payments officer Rizwan Khalfan, is to not only offer customers a way to securely share banking data but to eliminate the need for customers to input this data every time they want to access third-party software.

“We expect that customer enthusiasm for digital banking services will continue to grow as customers look for new ways to bank that meet their unique personal financial needs,” he said. “We want to be there for our customers and we have accelerated our work to leverage a market-developed technology solution to help increase the comfort level of customers looking to access digital services that are outside their bank.”

TD’s agreement with Intuit is part of the bank’s response to an increased need for efficient, safe data storage. Intuit and TD are founding members of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), which promotes tech that can better protect customer data.

TD recently launched its own in-house accounting tool, Autobooks, which allows customers to more quickly process end-to-end transactions. The goal in launching the tool was, essentially, eliminating busywork: at the time, Chris Giamo, head of commercial banking for TD Bank, noted that TD Online Accounting would eliminate “much of the administrative tasks of one of these critical activities—reconciling books and accounts—and empowers business owners to keep track of inflows and outflows more efficiently.” Most importantly, this new tool allows business owners to have more time to serve their customers” The Intuit integration simply offers consumers the option to continue using (or opt into) Intuit’s third-party tools in a way that offers similar ease-of-use to its own in-house tool.

TD has been working lately to improve its data-based offerings and solutions. In addition to the Intuit partnership, TD also recently invested in Akoya, a company that plans to use an API-based network for more secure data sharing.

In August, TD inked an open-banking deal with Finicity, which will offer customers the option to stop inputting banking credentials, such as passwords, with third-party financial management services — in this instance, those third-party services would be those that are not offered by Intuit. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, TD has reported a 30% increase in digital engagement; over that time period, the bank launched more than 100 new digital capabilities ranging from communication tools to new products and partnerships.