The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association addressed the increasing popularity, and potential risks, of data aggregation by launching an industry-wide initiative to help keep investors' information safe.

SIFMA released principles in four areas April 12 aimed at providing a more secure data chain, while still giving consumers the kind of tools they want to view and manage their money. Popular platforms such as Mint, Quovo and Personal Capital allow people to see some or all of their accounts in one place.

SIFMA also urged member firms and aggregators to move toward more secure technologies for gathering customer data, such as application programming interfaces, or APIs. Many third-party aggregators use "screen-scraping" technology that require consumers to supply passwords and other credentials. The aggregators then use software to scrape data from the financial institution's site.

"Data has never been more important, more available or more at risk. Keeping our customers' data safe is of paramount importance to our industry," said CEO Ken Bentsen in a news statement. "The goal of the principles is to provide customers with safe and secure access to their data and protection of their confidential account information, along with assurances that data aggregators adhere to the same data and security standards followed by regulated financial institutions."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau outlined a set of principles in October. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority also recently issued an alert, warning investors to use caution in sharing access to their accounts with third-party platforms.

Third-party aggregators complain that some financial institutions are limiting access to consumers' data more for competitive than security reasons.

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