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To: Harp who wrote (13612)	2/8/2000 9:18:00 AM
From: Benny Baga	Respond to of 20297

Tuesday, February 8, 2000 Hibernia And A Credit Union Sign Up With 'Screen Scraper' By Ross Snel Two financial institutions have become the first to announce their willingness to engage in the controversial practice of "screen scraping." Hibernia Corp. of New Orleans and First Tech Credit Union of Beaverton, Ore., said Monday that they have signed up with Corillian Corp.'s OneSource network, which will let participating financial companies provide their customers with information about accounts they hold elsewhere. Corillian said it expects another bank to join in the next few days. It would not say which bank. Signing with Corillian may pit Hibernia and First Tech against banks that have taken defensive measures against this new breed of aggregators. Screen-scraping companies, which include Yodlee.com Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., and VerticalOne, a unit of Atlanta-based S1 Corp., get customer permission to lift account data from the Web sites of banks and other companies, often without the knowledge of the company posting the information. First Union Corp. voiced the privacy and security concerns that many banks have about screen scrapers when it issued a set of guidelines for them to follow. The Charlotte, N.C., banking company also filed a lawsuit in late December against Secure Commerce Services Inc. of Princeton, N.J., the provider of Paytrust, which aggregates customers' electronic bills. First Tech said the link with an aggregator will deepen its own on-line relationships, since customers will be able to get all their financial information just by visiting the First Tech Web site. "We've embraced the open-finance model for quite a while, recognizing the need to offer best-of-breed products to our members," said Tom Sargent, president and chief executive officer of First Tech, whose members include employees of Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., and Symantec Corp. "Aggregation has been a key part of our strategy." Mr. Sargent said there is "strong interest" among the credit union's members to see all of their financial information in one location on the Internet, though they do not necessarily want to buy all their financial products from one company. "I think banks accept that there is a subset of customers who think a single-source location for a lot of different content is of high value and that these customers will go wherever they have to go to get it," said Laura Starita, an analyst at GartnerGroup. By participating in Corillian's OneSource network, First Tech and Hibernia are agreeing to let other companies access their customers' information via the Open Financial Exchange standard. First Tech and Hibernia customers thus have the ability to retrieve their account information at the Web site of any other company participating in OneSource. For example, a customer with accounts at both Hibernia and a participating broker could go to either company's Web site. Membership in the network also means First Tech and Hibernia will be able to aggregate information about accounts that their customers hold at other companies, including those that do not participate in OneSource. This is where screen scraping comes in. Scrapers obtain consumers' user names and passwords so they can log on to sites as if they were the consumers themselves. The software then locates information - say, a bank balance, or a list of recent bills - and presents it to the consumers at the Web site of their choosing. First Tech and Hibernia, of course, say they expect to be on the short list of possible sites. Corillian is asking financial companies whether they would like to participate in OneSource using OFX connections. If the companies don't have OFX connections or don't want to participate, Corillian said it would use screen-scraping technology to gather the information it desires. Matthew Cone, Corillian's chief marketing officer, said the company does not want to incur the wrath of banks. "We're very much on top of [the legal issues], and we expect to participate in the guidelines First Union and others are putting in place," he said. Corillian will notify banks when it takes information from their sites, Mr. Cone said. It also will provide them with the number of consumers who are asking for the data.