Open Banking APIs
The data may be in your bank, but the bank does not own it—you do. Rising consumer expectations and emerging regulations around the globe are forcing banks to provide expanded access to bank data. Banks are responding to these mandates by building real-time API services for API banking.
Problem
Emerging regulations mandate that banks must provide expanded access to bank data. Banks are addressing this by building API connections. But connecting to a bank API has historically been a huge IT investment, making it beyond reach for nearly every company.
Solution
FinLync has done the work for you. Our bank API connections are prebuilt and pretested, and are already accelerating business for treasuries around the world. Our bank account APIs are ready, and we are continuously developing new bank API integrations from more and more banks and their innovative API services so that companies can take full advantage of the expanded access.
CFO
Greater responsiveness to market expectations, accelerated leadership on real-time events or news. Gain an edge over competitors who are not taking advantage of the expanded data
Treasurer & Assistant Treasurer
Access to more data and information to support real-time treasury and more timely decision-making. Gain a competitive edge
Analysts
Eliminate the need to log into multiple bank portals; view all bank and ERP data in one location
IT
Improved security, reduced workloads, dramatically less ongoing maintenance
Process Comparison: Connecting to a Single Bank API
Without FinLync
With FinLync
Without FinLync Step 1
Gain buy-in and resourcing for a major software-development project
With FinLync Step 1
Download apps and guides from the FinLync portal
Without FinLync Step 2
Define the scope of work
With FinLync Step 2
Import apps into your ERP environment, maintaining basic configuration and imported bank keys
Without FinLync Step 3
Iterate the scope of work with IT
With FinLync Step 3
Assign user roles to existing ERP authorizations, test multiple banks and multiple APIs, and go live!
Without FinLync Step 4
Finally arrive at an official scope of work that doesn’t likely meet your true needs
Without FinLync Step 5
Wait for nine months until your project comes to the top of the pile
Without FinLync Step 6
Wait two to four years while the IT team pores through hundreds of pages of documentation, creating something for the very first time
Without FinLync Step 7
Change the project scope because the bank has changed its API requirements during development
Without FinLync Step 8
More delays, because IT has other urgent projects
Without FinLync Step 9
Finally put your APIs live—only to realize they don’t work
More About Enabling Open Banking
The advantages of openness are obvious. Secure, open data connectivity facilitates speed and better, more informed decision-making, encouraging innovation—and stimulating competition for improved services. All of which are key pieces to digital transformation and vital components of the future of financial services.
You can’t get this enriched financial data from anywhere else except a bank API—not from bank statements or other channels of connectivity or technology. But it can be difficult for corporates to connect or integrate to open banking APIs from their internal systems, especially when they have multiple financial institutions.
Consider the API challenge. The instructions for building a single API connection to your financial institution are often thousands of pages long. That one connection requires an army of resources: skilled third-party software developers, millions in development dollars, and many months of design, testing, reiteration and implementation. And that single connection does not cover all relevant client account data, but is limited to balances or payments or transactions—not the entirety of the account!
Worse, virtually no treasury is confined to one bank partner; most do business with many, demanding multiple bank transaction APIs across financial institutions.
As a consequence of these complexities, treasurers remain frustrated. Without immediate access to real-time financial data from multiple accounts, they lack a timely single source of truth and the ability to improve their financial data. Drowning in a sea of accounts, providers, banks and finance systems, they rely on manual, time-consuming work-arounds to acquire even the most basic of financial data —like their current available balance—to fulfill their most basic duties, such as making payments or moving cash between businesses.
Of course, treasurers have much more to do than basic transactions. But without a simple way to connect to bank APIs, they continue to tread water when they would prefer to have the most precise financial data in order to best navigate their institution’s finances.
For the treasurer, FinLync makes the open banking API a fast, easy way to enable real-time connectivity to multiple financial institutions in one simple action. It is a giant leap forward for financial services.
Unique and Global
FinLync is the only firm that is aggregating the real-time technologies that banks are building to create faster, more nimble treasuries.Multi-Bank APIs
FinLync has done all the hard work for you. Our API aggregator harmonizes data across all your financial institutions, turning a previously complex connectivity challenge into a simple plug-and-play process. We connect to the largest financial institutions in the world, and to boutique and regional banks. You get rid of bank files and middleware but get all the connections you need, plus real-time data and expanded data points, without having to manage the connectivity.Harmonized and Ready
We’ve already resolved one of banking’s biggest obstacles: ensuring that imported data fits internal data formats. No engines, no translations. Instead, your open banking APIs are ready to connect without complex configurations or ongoing IT maintenance.Embedded in Your ERP
FinLync bank APIs are facilitated by native applications, NOT software add-ons or build-outs. The resulting connections are not only inherently secure, but deliver more value. Treasurers never have to leave their corporate ERP to access and apply the latest information in one single source of truth.Beginning in Europe but expected to spread worldwide, the prevailing understanding is that data housed within banks belongs to its respective account holders, and it has already made a significant impact on the financial services industry to date.
Ownership means obligations. In the growing universe of open banking regulatory requirements, banks must not only allow unfettered access for clients and users, but permit data access by the clients’ authorized third parties.
What Is Open Banking?
Open banking is a concept designed to encourage competition and innovation in the banking industry. It is spurred on by regulations emerging around the globe, saying that data housed inside of banks belongs to the account holder, not the bank. And therefore, banks must give clients (or their designated third party providers) access to all the data the bank has. Banks are adhering to open banking regulations by providing APIs that are rich with the data mandated to be shared. Plus, FinLync is the way corporations can actually connect to these APIs and access/benefit from the expanded data.Where Is Open Banking Regulated Now?
Outside the U.S., many countries and their respective banking industries have, or are currently exploring, open banking regulations to force banks to open up their banking information with account owners. These open banking regulations differ depending on the country, but generally, they enforce or promote greater transparency and security. The most notable open banking initiative is Europe’s Payment Services Directives (PSD2), which generally requires banks to open customer bank data to authorized third parties. Payment Services Directives (PSD2) is not the only country to enforce open banking regulation, countries like India, Japan, and Singapore are set to launch or have already launched similar legislation.How are Open Banking APIs different than Premium Corporate Bank APIs?
Open banking APIs are designed for consumer banking, and as such, provide only basic bank information. While both offer greater financial transparency options, only premium corporate bank APIs meet the complex needs of business banking. For more on the differences, visit our blog post on open banking vs. premium corporate bank APIs.