Using the colour dipole approach of the QCD perturbative (BFKL) Pomeron exchange in onium-onium scattering, we compute the cross section for small but hierarchically different onium sizes. A specific term dependent on the size-ratio is generated. In deep inelastic onium scattering it appears as a scaling violation contribution to the quark structure function near the BFKL singularity. We find that the extension of the formalism for deep inelastic onium scattering to the proton structure function provides a remarkably good 3-parameter fit to HERA data at small x with a simple physical interpretation in terms of the dipole formulation.

10 pages, 2 Postscript figures