Newsroom Trends

Digital News Desk – Summer 2022

We’re back with a new edition of the Digital News Desk! You may have noticed we took a short break over the summer, and we hope you were able to unplug as well. Here’s an overview of the stories you may have missed this summer.

At Axway, we believe in an “Open Everything” world: that the best digital experiences will be built on open API platforms, as well as API-fueled MFT and B2B/EDI solutions, which make participation in an ever-expanding ecosystem frictionless. From Open Banking, to Open Healthcare, to Open Everything, those who have the courage to modernize and open up their business have something to teach us about being open to opportunity.

Top Stories

Summer started strong as we launched Axway Financial Accounting Hub, a business platform that drives the digital transformation of finance departments. At the launch event in Paris, Axway’s General Manager of Digital Finance Lionel Linossier introduced the solution:

“Axway Financial Accounting Hub is absolutely one of the most advanced and scalable offerings on the market today,” Linossier says. “It can manage 40 million events per day in real time for a retail customer, and we estimate that it can halve the costs and integration time for ERP Finance migration projects.”

Lionel Linossier at Axway Financial Accounting Hub Launch

« Je peux pas, j’ai clôture » means “I can’t, I have to close” in English – a humorous nod to what can be a stressful moment at the end of a financial period for finance teams.

Nadine Bismuth, part time CFO and executive coach, shared some thoughts on the event and the humorous quote on the bags given to attendees:

“Improved financial tools, such as those provided by Axway, support the financial transformation that I’m now accompanying as a freelancer. It also changes the lives of finance teams by promoting work/life balance, one of the main priorities in retaining talent. The human element if so important in any financial transformation project!”

Learn more about how Axway Financial Accounting Hub addresses major challenges for finance departments (in both French and English).

Postman CEO Abhinav Asthana shares his view of the 2022 API platform landscape, and some key points immediately jump out that we’ve been discussing here at Axway:

  • Companies are moving towards API-first
  • The importance of treating APIs as products
  • Poorly maintained service or API catalogs (hence the importance of an API marketplace!)
  • Why API security is about much more than technology

“Just having controls at the infrastructure layer is not enough,” says Asthana. Read Axway Catalyst Erik Wilde’s take on why security requires a combination of technology & processes here.

Discover more API trends in Postman’s 2022 State of the API Report.

The Harvard Business Review also tackles the issue of packaging data as a product:

“In our work we’ve seen that companies that treat data like a product can reduce the time it takes to implement it in new use cases by as much as 90%, decrease their total ownership (technology, development, and maintenance) costs by up to 30%, and reduce their risk and data governance burden.”

Later in June, Axway announced its latest release of Axway Managed File Transfer (MFT), available in both the Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services Cloud. The most complete solution in the industry, Axway MFT now boasts greatly improved data visualization, self-service features, configuration, and user management.

Learn more about the latest generation of intelligent, self-service MFT.

Last but certainly not least, in August we were proud to be positioned as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: API Management Solutions, Q3 2022¹.

Read more about Axway’s inclusion and what it means to us, and discover the full report here.

Axway was also ranked among the top 10 software publishers in France, coming in at #8 in the Truffle 100, which ranks and analyzes the top 100 European software companies.

Click here to read more (in French).

The Business of Digital Transformation

As mentioned previously, API First is a key concept in digital transformation. Catalyst Erik Wilde shares some clarification on API First:

“API First is about exposing every business capability as an intentionally designed API: It’s a business-level change, because you start thinking of your business as a composable set of digital building blocks.

API Design First is about developing an API by designing it outside-in: It’s an IT-level change, it will help you to get better APIs, but it will not help with figuring out what APIs to get.”

A new McKinsey survey describes “Three new mandates for capturing a digital transformation’s full value”:

  • Aim for strategic differentiation rather than cost efficiencies.
  • Develop proprietary assets such as AI, data, and software.
  • Develop tech-savvy talent with a focus on better overall integration of tech talent into the organization rather than just getting new tech talent in the door.

As Wilde points out, the Axway Catalyst team has been talking about these points for several years now, but, “if ‘new’ means that you now see these things being increasingly implemented, then all is good and things are moving in the right direction!”

Follow Erik Wilde on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube for more insights.

“Many women dropped out of the workforce entirely during the pandemic. What could we have done to better support them? By measuring what makes a difference and taking a data-driven approach to our decisions, we can make a real dent in the gender gap and empower women in tech.”

That’s what Axway’s  and Ruby Raley team up to discuss in the latest edition of HR Futures Magazine, helping draw a clearer path to gender equity in the workforce. (Full article by subscription only)

In Forbes, Axway CTIO Vince Padua shares best practices for using APIs to integrate your B2B ecosystem. Having the right APIs in place is key, he says, because “industrialization in the 21st century relies on nurturing business ecosystems. APIs are one of the key technologies advancing that dynamic.”

Joel Reid, UK&I VP/General manager at Axway describes how enterprises can use APIs to be data driven to the last mile:

“APIs and API management platforms enable retailers to create the seamless and frictionless shopping experiences today’s consumers expect. They optimise the delivery of relevant and personalised product information to customers, wherever they are on the customer journey. Customers need constant reassurance and guidance through the delivery process, which means that ensuring successful receipt is vital. It could mean linking product pages to social media platforms, giving personalised suggestions, or providing a ‘find in store’ service for when, frustratingly, it’s out of stock online.”

Read the full article in Digitalisation World.

Summer Events

The Axway teams kicked off the summer with Money 20/20 in Amsterdam, where presenters spoke about understanding and winning over customers, winning over the competition, and building the most progressive technological and regulatory environment in the world.

Later at France API, the largest French-speaking event on APIs, Axway Catalyst Emmanuel Methivier shared about what it takes to move from API platforms to digital service marketplaces.

Axway’s Christian Cagnol, Senior Director Strategic Partnership EMEA, presented on how securely opening up businesses to their ecosystems has become an opportunity and a necessity.

Read more about the France API event and catch replays here.

Also in June, Axway Head of Open Banking Eyal Sivan presented in Chicago at a Marcus Evans Group event on “Open Finance, APIs and Partnerships”. Sivan spoke on open banking readiness, both in the short and long term. He explained how open banking impacts digital transformation, the main technology pillars impacted by open banking, and the generation of real business value from open banking investments.

In his words:

“Although it was a pretty small room, it was filled with some of the brightest minds in North American financial services. With enthusiastic representation from American Express, Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs, TD and many other big players, it was clear that open baking has turned a corner in North America, from guarded skepticism to open optimism.”

Some interesting presentations at Apidays NewYork 2022 recommended by Axway CTIO Vince Padua include:

In August, the Axway team was in São Paulo for Febraban Tech, one of the largest technology and innovation events in the finance industry. Booth guests could stop by to listen to an excerpt of Eyal Sivan’s Mr. Open Banking podcastread coverage of the event here (in Portuguese).

febraban tech event group photo

Open Banking & Finance

How soon could we see a PSD3? In July, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published its recommendations (in response to the European Commission’s call for advice on a PSD2 review), with a strong call for mandating common API standards. Other recommendations include:

  • Structural improvements (an explicit role for an intermediary – aggregators, payment initiation)
  • Solving liability and liquidity issues (necessity for strong customer authentication)
  • Dedicated interfaces for 3rd party developers
  • Alignments with European monetary policies

Read more about the EBA’s recommendations and how they could change the open banking landscape in Europe.

In June, the U.K.’s Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) reported the country hit six million active open banking users.

“With a record 1 billion API calls, 5 million open banking payments, and 6 million active users, it’s clear that open banking is continuing to deliver added value to the UK’s consumers and small businesses,” says David Beardmore, OBIE Ecosystem Development Director.

Across the Atlantic, open banking adoption continues to move forward in North America, although in a more market-driven approach – and not without its fits and starts.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) partnered with Yodlee and Plaid in June to offer their clients what can be described as “a private form of open banking.” With open banking in development – but still no official open banking API or framework – journalist Charlize Alcaraz reports some are wondering why Canada’s banks are signing private agreements. Big six bank CIBC was next to partner with a fintech company on a private open banking API.

“It’s going to be slow and the first iterations are not going to work,” Kristo Käärmann, CEO and founder of London-based payments company, Wise, said of the transition to open banking in Canada, in a recent Financial Post article. “What we definitely found in the U.K. (is) it takes a few iterations … because the banks are a bit rushed to get something live and they have a deadline.”

In the article, Käärmann explained that in Canada, the transition to open banking won’t be easy, but it will be worth it in the long run. He also shares his perspective on why he believes lack of competition is the biggest challenge for the financial services sector globally.

Finally, Alex Johnson offers some real talk advice for banks & fintech companies with an article on “How to Survive Open Banking.”

Healthcare

There’s no question that FHIR APIs have the potential to change the patient experience for the better, but a less obvious questions is: will they succeed? Axway’s VP of Healthcare, Ruby Raley, joins fellow panelists in a recent webinar to look at how FHIR is changing the game and discuss some of the barriers to true interoperability in healthcare.

“We as an industry are often the blockers to interoperability because of our traditional thinking, and that’s why this is truly transformative, because we are being challenged about our culture,” says Raley.

“We have to think about the good in it that we want to keep – certainly, taking care of patients, doing the right thing, and not making avoidable mistakes – but also think about how to reduce the cost and friction to get the data we need in order to treat people faster, pay the right amount, and ensure they get the right care.”

What we’re listening to

In season three of Mr. Open Banking , Eyal Sivan discusses the “threat” posed by open banking, the explosion of fintech in Africa, and “Open Banking for All.”

Open banking is all about fair. Fairness is embedded inside of open banking. - quote from Mr. Open Banking podcast guest Rolands Mesters

Listen to the latest episodes here, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Yves Lajouanie, Senior VP and General Manager EMEA at Axway, looks back on the company’s history and how we accompany our customers for the long haul to see their digital transformation projects through. Watch the interview here on BSmart.fr.

And of course, don’t miss the latest episodes of the Transform It Forward podcast with Axway EVP & CMO Paul French, where he tackles topics from digital disruptions in the publishing world to the transportation industry to loyalty rewards.

That about covers it for our Summer News Round-up – you can always find the latest Axway news in our Newsroom, and stay tuned for more API and digital transformation headlines next month!

 

¹The Forrester Wave™: API Management Solutions, Q3 2022, Forrester Research, Inc., August 22, 2022

You can always find the latest Axway news in our Newsroom.