From start-up to scale: there is a banking API for every company 🚀💯
A deep dive in the banking stack built by iBanFirst.
2017 will be the year of the APIs, and the emergence of a new types of financial institutions that are digging deeper and deeper in the banking stack, opening their core-infrastructure to third party development and releasing a new breed of services. In 2017, tech companies are going to start designing products together with their bank, ensuring agility, scalability and a long term competitive advantage. The future of banking and finance is writing now. It will change the way we see banking and the very nature of money, forever.
“With the emerging of Open-APIs, Banking is becoming a commodity and the bedrock of any software businesses.”
iBanFirst is shaking up the outdated bank legacy
The banking industry is moving toward an API connected platform model. There is a broad-based push to a newly banking system architecture and as a symptom of this trend, you will see that PSD2 is on every banker’s lip, arguing about the potential impact of the European directive that will be applied in 2018. But this future, as they imagine it, is already here, they are just simply late.
Why banks are so late in the API economy?
You might want to answer it straight away: “Because bank is synonym of legacy”. It is not exactly like that, actually banks do have their own APIs. You didn’t know? Well, it is because they are kept internal, for private use only. Banks’ APIs cannot be opened to third parties because they simply have not been built for that. They have been designed under the wrong purpose. At that time, APIs were seen as a technical thing to be tackled by the IT department. They were a technical layer for proprietary applications of the bank only. Business did not want to be involved in IT at all and, here is the mistake, because it ended up with not marketed APIs that are only the mirror of the Service Oriented Architecture of the Back-End, replicating the legacy of an outdated IT architecture, 20 years old aged. So yeah, at the end you were right at the beginning, there is a bit of legacy in there ;).
“APIs are not amazing because it works but for what it works for.”
How far iBanFirst is killing it? An API for every company’s needs.
At iBanFirst, we invest a massive amount of time in designing our APIs based on the needs of our customers. We are going where any Fintech has never been, digging deeper and deeper in the banking stack and providing the most advanced APIs for companies: the essence of banking in a line of code.
- The Data API : the basic API for streamlining your accounts datas (here)
This API will allow you to get access historical and real-time financial data on the transactions booked on your account.
This is really the minimum service that you should require from your banking provider, in 2017 this should not be a must but a standard for tech companies.
This API is a basic one and should be integrated by companies whatever their growth stage is. Specifically, it will bring massive benefits for the companies:
- Starting out: Companies that are in their all very DIY stage, with IT and accounts being handle by the founders or someone close to them. At this stage, API will save precious time to the founders while they can focus on their product and preparing their company to the next scalability challenge.
- Getting bigger: Companies that are running hot, on earn out and want numbers to sustain. When the whole engine is pushing hard, top management will know what’s going on and be involved in all major decisions. Retrieving and consolidating easily financial data at this stage will be key for founders to take the best decision for the very future of their company.
2. Executing Payments through API : the most efficient access to the payment system in Europe for Corporates looking to create new opportunies (here)
This API will allow you to reference new beneficiaries with immediate effect and to pay them through your own interface or in an automated way; triggered by an event generated by your software.
This is an advance API for companies at scale: i.e. large companies that are always looking at ways of being more efficient and want to stay agile. They often manage a massive amount of transactions and the Payments API will help them to collect and match the incoming funds on one side while automating the execution of payments on the other.
3. Getting access to real-time rates through API : an internal trading room for global companies (here)
This API will allow you to retrieve real-time from the Forex market and execute conversions in real-time at the best rate.
This is an advance API for companies professionalising their presence in foreign market and want to optimize their conversion rates and the way they manage their transactions in foreign currencies. Usually, this API services works with and international payment module and a multi-currency IBAN accounts.
4. Generating IBAN through API : top-notch service for Marketplaces, Fintechs and large corporates (here)
This is the ultimate API to access to the core-banking infrastructure and allowing to generate IBANs on the go. It has been designed for marketplace, Fintechs and large corporates looking for a lean way to manage the collection of funds. Discover why every marketplace should implement this service in reading my previous post.
Conclusion: APIs are bringing limitless benefits for tech-companies
Whatever the stage of your company is, with iBanFirst you can start to build your own code on top of our banking stack. Developpers of course need to apply through the basic platform (create an account here). By opening our platform to third-parties developments, we really want to push innovation through an ecosystem of players pursuing a common strategy: Banking-as-Service (BaaS) and reshape financial services as a commodity.
We have a massive interest for individual developpers, marketplaces and Fintechs that see in our APIs a more cost effective way for innovating.
