Citibank riles online customers

None of the major UK High Street banks has agreed to be included in Citibank's scheme

A new service to help people manage online banking has run into difficulties days after its launch, BBC Radio 4 Money Box's Paul Lewis looks at why

A new service to help people manage their online bank accounts has run into the sand just days after its launch.

Subscribers to Citibank's new "My Accounts" service should have been able to use the Citibank website and one password to access all their online bank accounts - including those of other banks that are Citibank's rivals.

The new system - already tried out in the United States - is called account aggregation, and does away with the time and trouble of logging on to a different website to access each separate online bank account.

However, none of the major UK High Street banks has agreed to be included in Citibank's scheme.

Refusals mount up

Some refused directly and were never included. But others, who simply did not reply to Citibank's invitation, were put on anyway.

Now most are asking to be taken off. Royal Bank of Scotland has told Citibank to remove its name by the end of the weekend.

It followed Abbey National and Halifax - which told Citibank to take them off earlier in the week. All three were still there by Friday.

The three banks, which have more than 2 million online customers between them, all say they did not agree to be there in the first place.

Security worries

Abbey National's e-commerce director Ambrose McGinn told Money Box there were serious security issues.

"We are very concerned that our customers should be giving away their pins and passwords to their accounts. This is expressly against the terms and conditions of their account.

"We tell our customers not to disclose their passwords ever to our staff. If there is a problem on a customer's account then they will have invalidated their terms and conditions and they're leaving themselves wide open to all sorts of malpractice."

Now Money Box has learned that even the banks that remain on the site are unhappy.

Both Egg and Smile, with more than 2 million online customers between them, are warning their customers that using the new service will breach the terms of their account.

Citibank goes it alone

That leaves just one UK retail bank on the site and happy to be there - Citibank itself. And it is not just banks that are concerned.

American Express and the investment company Fidelity have both told Money Box that customers who use the Citibank service to access their accounts will be in breach of the terms and conditions. There are also concerns that the aggregation service breaches data protection or anti-hacking legislation.

Despite these difficulties, many of the banks that are unhappy with the Citibank service are actively discussing how account aggregation services might be made to work.

All are involved in discussions with the Association of Payment and Clearing Services (APACS) to work out how the security and other legal issues might be resolved. Account aggregation may have been delayed but it has not been stopped.

You can hear this story or read a transcript of it on the Money Box website. Money Box is on Radio 4, on Saturdays at noon (GMT) repeated Sundays at 9 and on its website all week.