A webinar on this very topic conducted with Opus, FISGlobal, MuleSoft and Noname Security will be available on PJ shortly. These mission critical API Management platforms represent new technology that is not yet clearly understood by IT operations. “How to Build a Production Ready Banking API Portal and Avoid EU Mistakes” offers US FIs and Fintechs important lessons derived from the EU’s painful effort to build an alternative financial services marketplace using APIs. At a high level, this article outlines similar findings:
Today, Open Banking presents an abundance of opportunity for smaller, innovative financial companies to establish themselves in the market. With Open Banking apps like Plaid, customers now have faster and streamlined access to their money, insights into their spending habits and more.
Application programming interfaces (APIs), provide the foundation for sharing data. Using APIs allows data to flow smoothly and between services, apps, platforms and financial providers. Meanwhile, APIs collect and aggregate the data that is exchanged and present it to the user in a way that is easy to navigate, giving them full visibility and control over their financial assets.
While the possibilities of Open Banking are limitless, they carry security and compliance risks associated with data sharing. Financial services providers participating in the Open Banking ecosystem are obligated to comply with data protection directives and follow best practices that can help secure customer data. By incorporating the below steps into their Open Banking strategies, fintech companies can provide competitive solutions while ensuring privacy, security and compliance.
The article then provides a look at issues associated with customer privacy and consent, APIs and data privacy laws, and securing API portal interfaces.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
