PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Deyanira Del Rio, Executive Director of New Economy Project, on MyCity Portal and Digital Wallet Concerns
2:18:16
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4 min
Deyanira Del Rio, Executive Director of New Economy Project, testified about concerns regarding the proposed MyCity portal and its digital wallet feature. She emphasized the potential risks to privacy, data security, and financial exploitation of low-income New Yorkers.
- Highlighted similarities between the current proposal and a defeated 2018 plan to add fintech to IDNYC cards
- Warned about the predatory nature of fintech business models that rely on data collection and sale
- Questioned the partnership with Sunrise Banks and Mokify, raising concerns about oversight and due diligence
- Suggested alternative approaches, such as partnering with community development credit unions and advancing public banking initiatives
Deyanira Del Rio
2:18:16
Okay.
2:18:17
Good afternoon, Chair Gutierrez.
2:18:19
And thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of a new economy project.
2:18:23
And thank you for shining a light on the very important issues and serious risks that this proposed project could present for for New York and for highlighting the many unanswered questions about how this program will be designed to ensure New Yorkers privacy and safety are fully protected.
2:18:42
New Economy Project has, since 1995, worked with community groups and low income New Yorkers throughout the city to fight bank redlining, predatory lending, and other forms of racial wealth extraction and discrimination in our financial system and broader economy.
2:18:57
Increasingly, our work focuses on fintech, financial technology companies that claim to expand access to banking services while in fact they are further entrenching inequality in our financial system and often serving to exploit unmet needs by low income New Yorkers and communities rather than wouldn't be meeting those needs.
2:19:20
And so we wanna encourage you to make sure that you are clear eyed about this digital wallet proposal and really be skeptical of these claims that this is about expanding access for unbanked New Yorkers and to address banking deserts.
2:19:37
We I wanted to just focus on the digital wallet in my testimony briefly.
2:19:42
First, I wanna say that back in 2018, our organization and joined with dozens of others across the city to fight back and defeat a similar proposal in which the administration then was proposing to add a financial technology chip to New York City's municipal ID cards or IDNYC cards.
2:20:00
And this would have exposed low income immigrant, on house New Yorkers and others to serious risks of surveillance and data collection and so much more.
2:20:11
This my city now proposal of integrating and potentially requiring people to tap into and participate in this fintech digital wallet raises many of the same risks and concerns that advocates raised at that time.
2:20:26
And also similarly would risk chilling New Yorkers uptake of city services if they had to subject themselves to such risks.
2:20:36
I wanna just make a couple of very quick points about Fintech.
2:20:41
One is that Fintech is predicated.
2:20:43
This industry is really predicated on the business model.
2:20:47
It's built on a business model of widespread collection and often sale of people's personal data.
2:20:52
This is not incidental.
2:20:54
It's not a side effect.
2:20:55
This is built into that model.
2:20:57
And oh my gosh.
2:20:59
My vision.
2:21:01
And so we want to make sure that in this case, that it's very clear that my city's integration with an array of city services could mean that a wealth of people sensitive information including their financial history, personal identification numbers, and much more, could be concentrated into one place, creating a sort of a a a huge portal of data over which the city would have very little control I wanna raise a couple of quick points.
2:21:29
Sunrise Banks is a very important player in this as the bank that partners with Mokify.
2:21:36
Mokify is the technology, fintech company, but it partners with Sunrise Banks to to manage and actually provide whatever financial services are it are provided.
2:21:47
Sunrise Banks is not on the list of banks that are designated to hold New York City deposits or to do business with the city.
2:21:54
Which means that they haven't gone undertaken the application process, the evaluation, and the oversight that banks are required to do to do business with the city.
2:22:03
So in the absence of that, we would ask what kind of scrutiny, what due diligence has the city conducted to ensure that that it's it's a that this is a a right approach.
2:22:13
And finally, New York City is home to community development credit unions to responsible lenders and financial institutions.
2:22:20
If the city wants to incorporate equitable and a fair way of expanding banking access to New Yorkers.
2:22:28
We have those institutions and the city can partner with and strengthen those institutions.
2:22:33
It can advance public banking for which there's a strong movement in the city.
2:22:37
It can take other steps to make a real difference that doesn't entail steering New Yorkers to high cost and often predatory fintech companies.
