Screen scraping ups the risk for phishing attacks. The responsibility for such hacks is murky. The practice can make for an unstable experience for the consumer. And it takes a toll on bank servers. Using APIs to move data largely solves those issues.

In other words, banks have good reason for their calls to end screen scraping. Gareth Lodge, a senior analyst in Celent’s banking group, points out how banks can better guard the assets in an API model — an order required from another law, which has yet to take effect, in Europe: General Data Protection Regulation.

“It gets very murky, very quickly,” Lodge said. “APIs give much tighter control over flow of data. It doesn’t surprise me for this aspect alone on why wants would want to hold on screen scraping.”

However, relying solely on APIs gives banks a tremendous amount of power in deciding what data an app can pull. To some, that sets the stage for less competition and defeats the point of PSD2.

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