The article in The Age yesterday about the inclusion of ‘screen scraping’ in the Senate inquiry into financial technology, is about more than safe or unsafe online practices.

It highlights the painful shift of a traditional financial services industry moving into the modern age.

While screen scraping itself is not new, Peter Jones, CEO of fintech Omni Financial, said that it comes with elements of both risk and reward. 

“There are three main areas to consider, and the trust in the security of the financial service providers’ systems is definitely one of them,” said Mr Jones.

“Customer experience is another. Technology can make our lives easier, and screen scraping saves us from the inconvenience of the time required to download, then upload each and every account compared to one automated data download. 

“Then there is the painstaking experience in talking through expenses line by line on the phone – 45 minutes in my own personal example with a major Bank earlier in 2019. 

“The time taken to decision a home loan, for example, without this digital capability will result in customers missing out on purchasing their dream homes, and cause undue stress during an already stressful situation.

“Finally, from a credit quality perspective the ‘screen scraping’ data is less prone to human error and not subject to customer manipulation prior to submission. The Credit Assessor or automated rules engine is able to deduct expenses that may be deducted.

“We assume that open banking will improve the mechanism for secure data sharing and we look forward to having the capability, but at this point we don’t it in the tool box and the benefits outweigh the risks,” said Mr Jones.

To read the article click here