EU commissioner for financial services, Valdis Dombrovskis, confirmed the need for a rethink in a speech given in Brussels late last week.
Screen scraping involves the use of software to automatically collect information from websites and systems. In the payments market, third party financial technology companies, including some payment initiation service providers (PISPs) and account information service providers (AISPs), rely on screen scraping as a means of accessing customer accounts so as to deliver services to those customers.
However, earlier this year the EBA issued a recommendation to prohibit screen scraping on security grounds. The EBA is tasked with developing a raft of regulatory technical standards under the reformed Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
To enable PISPs and AISPs to exercise their rights, under PSD2, to access payment account information to service customers, the EBA said banks and other payment service providers (PSPs) should be obliged to facilitate the third party access through either the same interfaces they use for engaging with customers, or through a separate "dedicated interface".
However, under the Directive, the Commission has the final say over the new standards.
Dombrovskis said: "We will … ask the European Banking Authority to have another look at the draft standards for data interfaces, and at proposals to allow fintechs access to the customer facing interface, whenever the dedicated interface breaks down or is not performing properly. This would safeguard the continuity of access for fintechs, while still allowing banks to require fintechs to use dedicated interfaces in normal conditions."
Dombrovskis' statement was made despite lobbying from EU banks.
The European Banking Federation (EBF) recently urged the European Commission to "fully endorse" the EBA's recommended regulatory technical standards on strong customer authentication and common and secure communication.