In the past decade, many banks have created a developer portal to publish their open APIs. Developers can visit the portal, sign up, and use the bank’s APIs to drive their business initiatives.
Is this open banking in action?
While many banks would say yes, I beg to differ: there’s much more to providing a successful open banking platform than just APIs.
Open banking is more than external API connections and checking regulatory boxes. (The U.S. banking rule remains law amid recent CFPB developments. More on that here.)
Open banking is also about delivering a robust experience that makes integration easier. When a bank can do that, it positions itself to be a preferred partner for fintechs, opening up the door to new business opportunities.
In this light, open banking compels businesses to treat APIs as products. Amplify Open Banking helps you do just that.
The need to treat open banking APIs as products
When banks open their APIs to an external audience, developers are customers. Ultimately, they’re kingmakers who decide which APIs to use, which to discard, and who they’ll do business with at the end of the day.
Thinking about open banking APIs in this context lends itself to the value of an API product mindset.
If you’re serious about marketing and selling your APIs like products, you need to keep developers (your customers) top of mind. They want to develop apps that drive value for their business—and the faster they can do that, the better.
While a developer portal supports a developer’s need for technical access and collaboration, an API marketplace layers a business-service-level view over the top of these elements.
Developers can easily find open banking APIs relevant to their needs and get all the information and documentation they need for consumption. This information and documentation might include product overviews, use cases, and demo applications that walk you through the consent and setup process.
Developers can also obtain all the credentials they need to start testing endpoints. These test harnesses let them become more familiar with APIs, and they can choose to start using APIs in Postman for comfort.
When banks cater to developers as they cater to their retail customers, they become more attractive to partners. An intuitive, self-service interface translates into a smoother onboarding experience for developers, helping them get their apps off the ground in less time.
See also: Transform API Developer Experience: The Power of a Marketplace
The Amplify Open Banking solution
Amplify Open Banking—based on our proven federated API management solution and infrastructure—is opening up new opportunities for banks to accelerate their open API growth.
Banks can quickly and easily publish open banking APIs in a healthy ecosystem, enabling value-driven solutions.
Three key feature sets of Amplify Open Banking help drive these results:
- An intuitive developer experience that supports productivity
- Access to pre-built open banking APIs based on dominant standards
- Security, identity, and consent aligned with your infrastructure
The API marketplace you build within it presents APIs in a clear and very easy-to-understand way. When a developer clicks through to an API, they’ll see a business page that explains in simple language what the API does, along with support in the form of documentation and outreach links. The business page can be white-labeled to make it part of the bank’s user experience, from the layout to the content.
You can use this framework to make the experience entirely your own.
With subscription mechanisms attached to APIs and credentials built into the products, developers can easily get up and running when it’s time to move forward. It’s complete self-service for a developer from start to finish.
See also: APIs in financial services: keys to successful adoption
While supporting a seamless developer experience, Axway does the same for bank customers.
Customers want to maintain control over who has access to their data. Open banking APIs provide this assurance, while Axway’s consent management dashboard allows a bank’s back-office users to visualize and manage customers’ consents.
This feature reinforces the bank’s role as a trusted overseer of sensitive financial data.
Providing the tools and the expertise
At Axway, we offer more than just an open banking solution: we bring 20 years of experience with API management and integrations to help you achieve the open banking edge.
Axway helps banks and credit unions wrap their arms around the complexities of open banking—and do it in a way that positions them to innovate and open up new revenue streams.
As consumers ask for new things that add complexity to internal systems, banks have a foundation in place to continue serving their open banking needs.
And, as we can already see, gaining a foothold in the open banking arena lends itself to more opportunities. The idea of open finance is even evolving into open data.