A new rule could make it easier to switch your bank. (Guess who hates it.)

Federal regulators want to make it less of a pain to change your bank — but first, it looks like they’ll have to win a battle in court.

On Tuesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unveiled the final version of its highly anticipated open banking rule, which aims to create more competition between financial services companies by making it simpler for customers to transfer their personal data between them.

The measure is in part designed to relieve some of the common headaches familiar to anyone who has ever tried to move their checking account or upgrade to a better credit card — a process that can require manually resetting a number of automatic bill payments and may mean losing years’ worth of transactions history.

Those kinds of inconveniences are known to keep many consumers from shopping around for better deals. One survey found that the average American has had the same checking account for more than 17 years; about 10% of consumers say they haven’t switched mostly because of the hassle involved.

 

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