Jack Henry & Assoc. Inc. has joined the Akoya Data Access Network, making it the first provider of core banking technology to integrate Akoya into its platform.

The Boston-based Akoya was spun off by the parent company of Fidelity Investments last year and is co-owned by Fidelity and 11 North American banks, including Bank of America, KeyBank, JPMorgan Chase and PNC. The network lets data aggregators and fintechs connect with financial institutions to obtain financial data through application programming interfaces (APIs).

More than 400 banks and credit unions use Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Platform, and integrating with Akoya will let bank and credit union customers grant fintech apps access to their financial data, Akoya said in a statement. More than 4.8 million consumers are on Jack Henry’s platform.

“Partnering with Akoya gives hundreds of community banks and credit unions the ability to bring more fintech apps within their own ecosystem and empower consumers to better control their data privacy and security,” Ben Metz, head of Jack Henry Digital, said in a statement. “This is the future of banking; a transition away from screen scraping in favor of full financial access through one’s primary financial institution. It’s how community banks and credit unions will compete.”

APIs can eliminate the risks associated with credential-based data aggregation, or screen scraping, which requires consumers to provide login credentials to use fintech apps and services, Akoya said, adding that APIs can improve data access reliability and reduce cybersecurity, privacy, and financial risks.

“Financial institutions understand the pressing need for secure consumer-permissioned data access but standing up an API infrastructure is complicated and expensive, especially for small-to-midsize financial institutions who don’t have the resources or expertise to build an open finance ecosystem themselves,” Akoya CEO Stuart Rubinstein said in the statement. “With Jack Henry leveraging the Akoya Data Access Network, Banno Digital Platform clients now have a straightforward API solution that better protects customers who want to share their data with fintech apps and services.”

Akoya also said it can reduce costs for financial institutions, including community banks and credit unions, by eliminating the need to develop and manage an API infrastructure program. Akoya uses the API standard supported by the nonprofit organization Financial Data Exchange.