Open banking participant Frollo has started to phase out the use of screen scraping in its services, saying open banking data is reaching critical mass and tighter online banking security measures are making the older technology less useful.

Frollo, which is an accredited data recipient under the Consumer Data Right, has a money management app that it markets direct to consumers. It has 150,000 users.

It also has a B2B business and currently eight financial institutions offer the Frollo app under their own brands.

The company announced it is phasing out screen scraping in its B2C offering and has already disabled screen scraping for the big four banks. It expects to do the same for about 50 other banks before the end of 2022. 

Screen scraping has been around for over a decade. A consumer gives a service provider access to their bank accounts, super funds and investment accounts; data is “scraped” from those sites and aggregated by the service provider.

When groups like Frollo started offering open banking services, they used a combination of CDR access and screen scraping to fill the gaps as open banking data built up.

Frollo chief executive Tony Thrassis said the big banks now support data sharing for more than 30 product types via open banking, which provides the coverage required to operate a successful personal finance management app.

“Already, more than eight out of 10 new accounts linked in the Frollo app are using open banking and we expect this to only increase as we progressively phase out screen scraping for other banks until it’s only used for banks and products not covered under CDR.”

The other issue spelling the end of screen scraping is tighter online banking security. 

Frollo chief customer officer Simon Docherty said NAB has announced it is implementing tighter security measures for online banking, requiring customers to use multifactor authentication to log in. Macquarie Bank and HSBC Bank Australia are making similar changes.

Docherty said: “We can still use screen scraping to get access to NAB accounts but the user experience will not be as good.”

He said the move away from screen scraping makes use of the app more secure for the consumer. “With screen scraping the consumer has to give their online banking user name and password. That raises security concerns.”

Thrassis said: “Our research shows that consumers care a lot about their privacy and security when sharing financial information. In the finance industry we have an alternative to screen scraping and it’s time to change the default.”