Impact on banks

From a business perspective, banks could leverage access to third-party customer data and functionality for their own services to extend their value chain and service offering. For example, the combination of existing, aggregated customer data and information enables a very detailed customer picture. Hence, innovative and attractive customer services, such as holistic advice or customer-specific credit products can be offered. The customer base of banks, which are first to actively implement Open Banking, could be expanded and additional market shares gained. In addition, banks could offer chargeable (micro-)services via APIs (API economy). A modern IT architecture is imperative to make so-called micro-services available with publicly available APIs. This requires the following structural measures and investments:

The introduction of an integration layer allows a serviceoriented architecture and is the prerequisite for publicly accessible, standardized APIs. It mediates between transformation, routing and protocol conversion and ensures the communication between core banking system and APIs.

The provision of data via APIs can make databases significantly more efficient. Therefore, it is recommended to use a powerful database (e.g. NoSQL) for read-only API calls. If the core banking system cannot guarantee 24/7 availability, a front database for API calls is mandatory.

An API management platform or API gateway is required to perform API usage / performance analysis, API release / lifecycle management, API access management, and subscriber management.

An API developer portal is required to ensure that banks, as well as third-party developers, can develop and test their own applications using currently available APIs.

Costs for the introduction and maintenance of new IT architecture.