chapter 02 DATA BELONGS TO THE CLIENT Throughout the history of the financial system, the way Banking operates has been: “You are my client, you deposit, withdraw, pay, borrow and I give you access to bank account or Internet consultation, ATMs and SMS messages to know how you are doing, but the outcoming information of your transactions and emerging behavior patterns do not belong to you, they belong to the institution.” The financial institution may or may not use such data to create a profile of the client ‒tools to understand the client’s behavior within the competences of banking - and try to offer the client a better product or service in the future. Each bank accumulates information on individuals and businesses that operates with the bank, but for a client of two or more entities, the data is fragmented. Each one acts as if it were a different entity, circles of a financial archipelago where there are no bridges, but closed silos that do not consider the client as a whole. Data is to the economy of the 21st Century economy what oil was to the economy of the 20th Century. The right of clients to their own information is enhanced. The client has the right to go to a financial company and say: “Look, I am client of company B, I give your company my permission to contact the companies currently servicing me to know my record of withdrawals, deposits and payments, without limitation, and use such information to analyze me and see if you can offer me a product or service.” A TWO-WAY PATH 25