By Alistair Cotton, Co-founder & CEO of Integrated Finance

There is a noticeable shift in the way consumers and businesses use financial technology. What started off as banknotes and physical ledgers, has evolved into decentralised currencies and payment transactions that can reach and clear on the other side of the world in an instant.

Due to lower entry costs, building digital banking products has never been easier. The rise of banking services offering software technology at each level of the payments supply chain has reduced entry costs, and building digital banking products has never been easier. Yet, many Fintech businesses still struggle to launch their offering to market at the rate and pace that allows them to compete effectively.

To unlock opportunities in digital banking, fintechs must understand the vast landscape of banking APIs, and how they can utilise financial infrastructure to gain a competitive advantage.

Why can it be so difficult to take part in the digital banking revolution?

Financial evolution in the new century

It’s impossible to deny that our connected world has, at least in part, been a catalyst for the financial revolution. The laying of undersea fibre cables for better internet access, Fintech startups trying to bank the unbankable, and the distrust of fiat currency in some circles have ushered in a new digital age of finance.

We are a part of an age where it is easy to transact with a company located on another continent, or purchase takeout and have it delivered at the drop of a hat – those are two widely different examples that are built off incredibly similar technology stacks.

It’s incredible, right?

Well, the answer is a resounding “yes,” but that’s for the average consumer. For Fintech businesses, things are a little more difficult.

With all of these advancements and amenities, also came an array of core banking integrations that require vertical domain expertise, harsher restrictions and regulations to curb the behaviour of more unscrupulous actors, or reserve banks wanting to control every aspect of fiat currency within its given county.

The question now is “How do businesses adapt to the wild amount of new financial infrastructure?”

The ins and outs of Banking APIs

That’s where advanced banking Application Programming Interface (APIs) comes into play.

By implementing APIs in banking, Fintechs can become highly specialised whilst remaining useful to a broad range of customers, and adhering to strict regulatory requirements.

APIs are the lifeblood of any technology platform or service. It’s how Uber drivers know where to pick up customers, how ecommerce stores can offer instant EFT and credit card payment options, and how consumers hold bespoke investment portfolios that update to the market in real-time.

As for banking APIs, they enable Fintech businesses with the opportunity to offer new products that would either be too costly or technologically incompatible to integrate. For those businesses that don’t have millions of customers to absorb such costs, this approach offers real value because products and channels can be tested with customers and iterated rapidly, without huge, fixed set-up costs.

APIs are also an excellent way for old financial institutions to keep up with modern technology. There has been an explosion in digital banking, in fact, during the month of September 2021 in the UK, there were over 6.6-million successful payments thanks to APIs (Open Banking, API Performance Stats, 2021). That’s an incredible number that has a future upward trajectory.

Developers and Fintechs

With Banking APIs, Fintech applications are given greater flexibility for the user. By using Banking APIs, developers can quickly and easily create robust applications and expand their functionality.

For example, APIs allow developers to quickly integrate systems that:

– Request s customer’s insurance history.

– Issue bank accounts for new applicants.

– Find the nearest ATM on a banking app.

– Invest in shares for the top-performing companies in the local market.

Thanks to evolving technology, these services are executed faster than ever before. The average wait time for Banking API execution is 436ms in the UK, with 976.8-million API calls (Open Banking, API Performance Stats, 2021).

Using a pre-established service for APIs, such as Integrated Finance, means that the systems are always up to date. A banking institution can overhaul its servers or expand its offerings without developers needing to worry about new code bases.

And banking APIs can also bring the old guard of finance into the new digital era. More and more purely digital banks are being established to cater to the ever-changing needs of consumers. Who really wants to visit a physical bank to apply for a loan that can be processed in seconds through an app?

It’s time that Fintech organisations focussed less on developing already existing technologies and adhering to regulations and started offering tailored experiences to their customers.