Fake News, Screen-scraping and the European Banking Federation #PSD2

The old row between new financial service providers and the European Banking Federation has blown up again. At issue is whether the providers of new regulated "account information" services that rely on access to your payment account data should be able to copy it from your online account ('screen-scraping') or only get it through a different type of interface (API) directly provided and controlled by the bank.

Rather typically, the EBF has produced a video that purports to explain 'screen-scraping' (which could be done in a single slide) but actually misleads by suggesting that the motives of the new service providers who want to do it are unlawful. 

Of course, the method of accessing the account information really has nothing to do with the motives of this new type of regulated service provider.

Instead, the EBF's tactics merely reflects the major banks' age-old resistance to anyone else using "their" payment data to provide you with services that are more useful than the very limited data and features available in your bank account. In fact, that resistance led retailers to launch 'loyalty' programmes and behavioural targeting of advertising as far less efficient ways of figuring what you like to spend your money on.

But the data in your payment account is your data, and you should be able to combine it with your other data - or have trusted third parties do that for you - if you wish. 

That's why - refreshingly - the authorities insisted that PSD2 should specifically regulate the new 'account information service providers'; and, crucially, requires banks to make your payment account available to them, precisely so that you can - if you wish to - rely on their services to make sense of your financial affairs or know how much money you have available while shopping etc., without having to log-in to your bank account(s). 

PSD2 also obliges your payment account information service provider to comply with security and data protection requirements when accessing and handling your payment data, regardless of how they get access to that information. 

So, the latest dust-up is is really just an (old) technological argument about whether a service provider should use your log-in credentials to copy the information from the screen that you see, or only access the data through an interface provided (possibly badly) by the bank. It has nothing to do with the possible motives of the service provider in using the data - and they have to behave lawfully anyway.

The fact that the EBF has resorted to fake news and moral panic tells me that any real 'arguments' against screen-scraping are very weak indeed...