The launch of an account aggregation service by Internet bank Egg,
this week, was overshadowed as two highstreet banks quickly moved
to distance themselves from the service after expressing concerns
about its legality.
The service, called Money Manager, will allow registered customers
to view all their accounts, loans and savings - from various banks
- through a single Web site.
Companies offering account aggregation services need customers to
supply the passwords to their other accounts, allowing the
aggregation provider to "scrape" account information together for
display on one Web site.
At the launch of its service Egg listed nearly 20 UK banks that
would appear in Money Manager. However, both Halifax Bank Of
Scotland and Abbey National withheld support for Egg's service,
citing security and data privacy concerns.
Abbey National said it was assessing the service and added that it
had not given Egg permission to aggregate Abbey National customer
data.
Aggregation services have been dogged by legal uncertainty. Last
year Egg and Virgin Money decided to delay the roll-out of account
aggregation services in response to fears that they may breach data
protection and security laws, including the Data Protection Act
1998 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
Confidence in aggregation services was also further knocked last
year when industry watchdog the Financial Services Authority warned
businesses and consumers that its current powers did not extend to
regulating the new single-view services. In order to boost consumer
confidence, clearing organisation Apacs set up a working group
which has published best practice guidelines.
Egg claimed this week that it had informed the main banks of its
plans and given them time to raise any concerns, and that its legal
advice indicated that Money Manager complied with the Data
Protection Act.
The account aggregation service was secure because a customer's
personal security details are encrypted on their own PC, whereas
under the original plans the data would have been stored on an Egg
server, the company said.
A script downloaded on to the customer's PC automatically "screen
scrapes" information from their other accounts when the aggregation
service is requested.