Why More Americans Are Ditching Bank-Linked Budgeting Apps: Fees, Frozen Rules and Fraud Worries

People leaving bank-linked budgeting apps are reacting to four things that changed at once: the federal rule meant to govern bank data connections is frozen, the largest U.S. bank started charging aggregators for that data, a major free app shut down in 2024, and worries about fraud and data use remain high. None of these forces people out on its own. Together they make a budget that never touches a bank account look less like a compromise and more like a choice.

This is an analysis by the Monthly team. Monthly is a manual budgeting app that doesn’t connect to banks, so we have an interest in this story; weigh our reading with that in mind. Every factual claim below names its source and date, and the full list is at the end.

What we can and can’t measure

First, a caveat about the headline. We did not find a public survey that counts how many Americans have dropped bank-linked apps, and we won’t invent a number. What we can document is the pressure: dated regulatory events, business decisions and survey data on fraud and privacy. The evidence for the shift is the set of reasons, not a head count.

There’s also strong evidence the other way, which we cover below. Plenty of people still want their bank data in their apps.

Pressure 1: the rules for bank connections are on hold

Bank-linked apps rely on a chain: your bank, a data aggregator, the app. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau tried to set ground rules for that chain with its Personal Financial Data Rights rule, issued on October 22, 2024, which among other things barred banks from charging for required data access.

The rule never took practical effect. According to the CFPB’s compliance page, last updated January 6, 2026, the bureau issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on possible amendments on August 22, 2025, and a federal court stayed the compliance dates on October 29, 2025, in Forcht Bank, N.A., et al. v. CFPB in the Eastern District of Kentucky.

On August 10, 2026, PYMNTS reported that the CFPB had sent a proposed “Personal Financial Data Rights Reconsideration” rule to the White House for review, and that the text had not been released. The same report said the bureau had been weighing whether to drop the blanket ban on fees and allow them after a set number of free requests. When we checked on October 23, 2026, we did not find a published proposal.

For users, the practical meaning is uncertainty. The rules about who may charge for your data, and how connections must work, are not settled.

Pressure 2: someone now pays for the connection

While the rule was in limbo, the market moved. Banking Dive reported on September 16, 2025 that JPMorgan Chase had told fintech groups in July 2025 that it would charge for data it previously shared for free, and that Plaid had agreed to pay fees to keep collecting consumer data from the bank. Plaid said the deal wouldn’t change its customers’ agreements or pricing. The Financial Technology Association, a fintech trade group, argued in the same report that such fees are prohibited by current law and harm consumers.

Users don’t see those fees directly today. But they add a cost to every bank connection, and costs in a chain tend to land somewhere. An app with no bank connection has no such cost to pass on.

Pressure 3: apps can disappear

For many households, the biggest reason to rethink a bank-linked tool wasn’t regulatory at all. Intuit shut down Mint on March 23, 2024, and pointed users to Credit Karma, as NerdWallet reported. NerdWallet noted that monthly budgets and custom categories did not carry over to Credit Karma.

Mint users had years of linked accounts and categories, and had to start over. That experience taught a lesson that goes beyond one product: a budget that depends on a company’s integrations is only as durable as that company’s interest in maintaining them. Our guide to Mint alternatives covers where people went.

Pressure 4: fraud and data worries remain high

The background worry hasn’t eased. The Federal Reserve’s Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, released May 13, 2026, found that 20 percent of adults experienced financial fraud or scams in 2025, and estimated total non-credit-card fraud at $100 billion, with $56 billion borne directly by consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission told Congress’s Joint Economic Committee on March 25, 2026 that consumers filed 3 million fraud reports in 2025 and reported $15.9 billion in losses, up from 2.6 million reports and over $12 billion in 2024.

Those numbers aren’t about budgeting apps; we found no evidence tying them to any specific app or aggregator. But they shape how people feel about every extra company that can see their accounts. In a Pew Research Center survey published October 18, 2023, 81 percent of U.S. adults said they were concerned about how companies use the data they collect about them, and 67 percent said they understood little or nothing about what companies do with it.

The other side: many people still want their data connected

It would be misleading to describe a rush for the exits. A Harris Poll for the Financial Technology Association, fielded June 20 to 24, 2025 among 2,083 adults and published July 11, 2025, found that 75 percent believed they should be able to securely share their data with apps they trust, 86 percent of fintech users said trusted digital tools make managing money easier, and 53 percent opposed banks charging fees to apps users have authorized. The poll was commissioned by an industry group that favors open data access, so read it as one side of the debate, but it’s a reminder that bank-linked apps solve a real problem: nobody enjoys typing transactions.

The more accurate picture is a split. People who want an automatic record of every purchase keep connecting. People who mainly want to know what they can spend this month increasingly ask whether they need the connection at all.

What switching to manual actually looks like

The trade is concrete. Here’s an illustrative month for someone moving from a synced app to a manual plan:

• Income: one entry per paycheck, say $2,050 twice a month.
• Fixed expenses: rent, utilities, phone, insurance, car payment and subscriptions, entered once and confirmed each month, totaling $2,480.
• Weekend reserve: $240 for the month.
• Result: $1,380 of real free money, with no transaction feed and nothing linked.

Setup takes the better part of an hour the first time. After that, the monthly update is a few minutes. What disappears is the categorized history of every coffee; what remains is the number that drives decisions.

Curious how your month looks without a bank feed? Enter your paychecks and fixed bills in Monthly and see your free money without linking a single account →

Where Monthly fits

Monthly was built around this model from the start. You enter income, fixed expenses, installments, a weekend reserve and any investments or debts you want to note, and the app calculates the month’s real free money. It doesn’t connect to banks, doesn’t move money and doesn’t execute trades. Savings goals live under Net worth, Goals, with contributions you log yourself. That design avoids every pressure above, and it costs you the convenience of automatic import. Our comparison of the most private budgeting apps puts Monthly next to other options, bank-linked and manual, with their trade-offs.

What to watch next

• The CFPB proposal. If the reconsidered rule is published, the comment period will show whether fees on data access become official policy.
• The Kentucky case. The court’s stay is what keeps the 2024 rule from taking effect.
• More bank fee deals. Banking Dive’s reporting suggests aggregators are negotiating bank by bank.
• App pricing. Whether connection costs eventually appear in subscription prices.

For a broader look at the market beyond bank connections, see what’s changing in budgeting apps in 2026.

The bottom line

No single event is pushing Americans away from bank-linked budgeting apps. A frozen federal rule, new fees in the data chain, the memory of Mint and steady fraud anxiety add up to a reasonable question: do I need to give a budgeting app my bank data to plan my month? For many people the answer is still yes. For a growing group, it’s no. If you’re in the second group, set up one month in Monthly from your pay stubs and bills, and see whether the free-money number is all you needed. This article is informational and is not financial or legal advice.

Sources (checked October 23, 2026)

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Personal financial data rights” compliance resources page, last updated January 6, 2026. consumerfinance.gov
• PYMNTS, “CFPB Open Banking Rewrite Could Put Data-Access Fees at Center of Section 1033 Fight,” August 10, 2026. pymnts.com
• Banking Dive, report on the JPMorgan Chase and Plaid data access agreement, September 16, 2025. bankingdive.com
• NerdWallet, “Mint App Closing: What It Means, How to Pick a New Budget Service.” nerdwallet.com
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, May 13, 2026. federalreserve.gov
• Federal Trade Commission, prepared statement before the Joint Economic Committee, “The Rising Scam Economy,” March 25, 2026. ftc.gov
• Pew Research Center, “Key findings about Americans and data privacy,” October 18, 2023. pewresearch.org
• Financial Technology Association, “New Harris Poll: Americans Demand Freedom to Use Financial Apps and Services of Their Choice,” July 11, 2025. ftassociation.org