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Tag: open banking

Articles

How to Embrace Innovation in Banking

In this period of economic change, while many banks are cutting spending on “discretionary” projects, it is important to remember that innovation is the linchpin that will help them survive and flourish in less favorable conditions.

The pandemic alerted traditional banks about the need to catch up with fintech platforms. In response, most banks have created powerful apps and websites to improve the user experience. Customers can now achieve most of their banking activities without a physical visit to the branch.

But is that enough to compete with modern fintech companies? And more importantly, are these new additions structurally impactful enough to bear the brunt of the next disruption?

“Smaller FinTech companies have rapid and low-cost access to these newer cloud-based technologies and are developing innovative, best-in-class solutions that address a number of the pain points that are costly for traditional banks to deal with and create friction in the customer’s digital experience.”

Source: PwC

Instead of facing challenges as they come, banks must stay ahead of the curve to stay competitive. In this article, we discuss the need for innovation and how you can ensure your bank stays at the forefront of innovation in banking.

The Need for Innovation in Banking

 

The need for innovation is driven by two key factors:

Customer Expectations are Becoming Customer Demands

The young generation of customers likes to stay informed about the latest tech. They are early adopters andincreasingly expectall businesses, especially banks, to offer them a convenient, highly integrated experience on whatever channel they engaging with.

Just as customers have grown accustomed to mobile banking, they are quickly becoming accustomed to receiving tailor made offers and incentives based on the payment card they are using or the retailers they frequent.   

Over time, these innovations will become table stakes. Traditional banks that fail to catch up will struggle for market share.

In December 2022, the Innovation in Retail Banking Report surveyed large national and regional banks (33%), credit unions (17%), and community & regional banks (24%) to identify trends in banking. As the chart above reveals, offerings including checking accounts, lending and investments, which can be foundational growth areas for banks, have seen little innovation since the pandemic (2020-2021).

Competition

Your competitors will make a run to implement the latest technologies because it’s an opportunity to rope in more customers. If you fail to keep up, your customers will take their business elsewhere.

Your competition might just be some of the largest banks in the world. It’s hard to compete unless you have the right team to support your innovation.

Citigroup hired 8,000 tech workers in 2023, and it already had 30,000 software engineers employed.

So, why is America’s fourth-largest bank going all-in on IT spending?

A GOBankingRates survey found that 85% of people prefer banking online with a mobile app. And Citi wanted to improve customers’ online banking experiences by investing heavily in a top-notch IT team.

Improving online experiences is only the tip of the iceberg. Many large banks and neobanks are already using technologies like AI and machine learning (ML) to develop innovative use cases for their customers.

Overcoming the Fear of Innovation

Employees maintain the status quo when leaders don’t encourage innovation and risk-taking. Leaders should appreciate innovative ideas to develop a culture that fosters innovation.

Here’s how you can help employees overcome the fear of innovation:

Embrace Creative Destruction

Banks are often reluctant to introduce products or services that can destroy an existing, profitable line of business.

This creates an opportunity for a competitor to enter the market with a new idea and disrupt it.

As Schumpeter’s Theory of Creative Destruction explains, capitalism evolves and new, innovative products continue to drive old products obsolete.

For example, companies like Apple and Samsung continue to introduce innovative products like foldable phones and flip phones. These products can impact the sales of existing products that sell well. But if they don’t introduce these products, their competitors will.

Instead of giving in to fear, consider extensive research and testing the product or service to minimize risk.

Take Calculated Risks

Build a culture that encourages calculated risk-taking. If you punish failures, why will anyone share more creative ideas with you?

“Management can state their encouragement for innovation, but it is the demonstration of acceptance for radical innovation that shows whether the support is truly there. People will only want to attempt something risky when there is little threat of significant negative consequences to their work or their career from a failure.”

Source: Journal of Strategic Leadership

Sure, risk-taking isn’t exactly encouraged in banking. But it’s necessary in the context of innovation.

Leaders must improve their response to failure. Instead of punishing failures, consider building a framework that helps creative team members navigate failures when innovating.

For example, encourage your team to identify barriers that led to failure. Help them create an action plan to improve in the next iteration. Provide them with the guidance and resources needed for research.

Encouraging calculated risks and providing a framework to navigate failure helps reduce the overall risk to the organization without stifling creativity or innovation.

Building a Culture of Innovation

Implementing new technologies successfully is a half-won battle. Sustaining the innovative spirit requires a culture that fosters innovation.

“Getting the technology implemented successfully is table stakes. Then you need to energize it with the right culture to drive innovation and transformation.”

Source: Accenture

Research by Jay Rao and Joseph Weintraub published in the MIT Sloan Management Review states that innovative culture requires six building blocks:

  • Values: A company’s values are reflected in leaders’ actions. Values that promote entrepreneurship, creativity, and continuous learning breed innovation.
  • Behaviors: The behavior of employees and leaders determines the success of innovation. An example of the behavior of leaders is how they act when it’s time to discontinue a product to make room for a new, innovative product. On the other hand, employees must proactively seek resolutions for technical difficulties and make the most of a limited budget.
  • Climate: Create a work environment where innovative ideas are rewarded with enthusiasm. Encourage people to take on challenges and risks and promote independent thinking to create an atmosphere conducive to innovation.
  • Resources: Innovation requires more than just funding. You need resources like technology and domain experts to experiment with or execute innovative ideas.
  • Processes: Banks need a well-defined process to bring an innovative concept to fruition. The process should include idea evaluation, the method for prioritizing ideas in the pipeline, and funding sources.
  • Success: Success is critical to funding future innovations. You can capture the success of innovation at three levels (external, enterprise, and personal). External success is especially important because it shows how well your innovation paid off and earns the company recognition as being innovative.

If you want to build a culture of innovation, make sure you have at least two to three of these building blocks solidly in place.

Enhancing the Customer Experience Through Innovation​

Customer experience is one of the most critical areas that innovation in banking can improve. Here are a few examples of how:

Omnichannel Banking

Omnichannel banking isn’t new. Your bank probably already allows customers to switch seamlessly between self-service, assisted, and full-service banking.

But there’s a major gap in terms of personalization between self-service and assisted banking.

Using AI to improve personal engagement can help digital and in-person banking channels work together.

It allows the banker to step in only when necessary, allowing the customer to self-serve otherwise.

For example, you can suggest debt investments to a customer who has been consistently investing in equities to rebalance their portfolio.

If your customer thinks rebalancing is a good idea, they’ll consider it or reach out for more advice.

Banking in the Metaverse

Currently, the best you can do is use AI to understand the customer’s behavior and push personalized suggestions.

However, according to Deloitte, bank branches remain the preferred method of banking for complex transactions like mortgages and wealth management across economies.

That’s a gap the metaverse can bridge.

Banking in the metaverse feels like a distant dream. But banks like J.P. Morgan are already investing in the metaverse.

The reason? The metaverse opens plenty of doors to provide personalized and immersive customer experiences.

Picture this: A customer wants to invest a substantial amount and needs advice.

Do you think he’ll want to make a decision over the phone or in just a single visit? Probably not.

The metaverse solves two problems here.

First, the customer can meet a virtual assistant or a bank representative’s avatar in the metaverse, just like in real life. Second, the customer can arrange multiple meetings without having to waste time physically traveling to the branch.

Open Banking

Open banking is a system that allows banks to access data from third-party financial services via open banking APIs (application programming interfaces).

Accessing third-party financial data offers plenty of opportunities for innovation. For example, you can partner with a fintech company to offer an innovative solution that you’ve created.

You can continue focusing on innovation while the fintech manages your innovative banking solutions.

Open banking allows you to provide BaaS (banking-as-a-service) to third-party financial services. You can allow them to connect to your database and charge a fee. The third party can use the data to offer more value to customers.

Also Read: How Blanc Labs and Flinks and overhauled mortgage application for EQ Bank

Regulatory and Security Considerations

Regulatory and security considerations are critical to ensuring you don’t end up in legal hot water or end up losing thousands of dollars (and your reputation) to scams.

Regulatory Considerations

Regulators want to encourage innovation while mitigating risks.

For example, central banks around the world have started to accept the idea of digital currencies. But so far, most cryptocurrencies have shown themselves to be poor stores of value that are often used for illicit purposes.

The key here is to work with the regulators to find common ground where digital currencies have a more stable value.

As McKinsey explains:

“Regulators also play a critical role in shaping the context in which banks—both digital and traditional—execute their business plans. For example, with a regulatory framework that enables fully digital onboarding and operations, banks may be better able to reduce the costs of onboarding new customers. Or, in a market where the central bank puts in place mechanisms to support data flow, simplify credit scoring, and encourage open banking through common API standards, banks may find it easier to focus on data access to support their risk-management activities.”

Involve people within your institution who know what the regulations say. When working on innovative solutions, use these insights.

Speak to regulators and compliance officers to understand the potential regulatory roadblocks you might face as you bring your innovative solution to market.

Instead of viewing regulators as a barrier, make them assets. Seek their guidance through the process of innovating products that comply with applicable regulations.

Security Considerations

Hasty digital transformation can leave you vulnerable to security risks.

For example, as open banking becomes more popular, the number of third-party providers accessing a bank’s system will increase. There’s an obvious risk of unauthorized access to customer data and fraud.

Banks must standardize their security architecture and create a gateway for API call pre-validation.

PSD2 security requirements can adversely impact the customer experience, but RTS (Regulatory Technical Standards) provide the alternative of using behavioral biometrics.

Behavioral biometrics enable banks to identify potentially fraudulent transactions before they’re executed. According to a BioCatch case study, banks were able to flag 312 fraud attempts within a month, preventing over $300,000 in losses.

Collaboration with Fintechs ​

Collaborating with fintechs allows banks to play to their strengths and tap into the capabilities of fintech startups.

The Open Banking and Embedded Finance report states that companies are partnering with third-party providers to deploy advanced technologies.

Here are some critical areas where banks rely on third-party relationships:

According to the Innovation in Retail Banking 2021 report, banks specifically need innovative solutions for digital account opening, cloud deployment, open banking, and the speed of deployment of these solutions.

Here’s a quick overview of the level of partnership banks had with third-party providers in key areas as of December 2021:

Bigger banks might consider acquiring a fintech company instead of collaborating with them. Acquisitions allow banks to leapfrog into the future with innovative solutions. However, if an acquisition doesn’t seem viable, collaboration is a smart move.

Innovate with Blanc Labs​

Blanc Labs helps banks, credit unions, and Fintech companies automate processes and implement cutting-edge solutions powered by technologies like RPA, AI, and ML.

Banks are looking to partner with third parties to implement advanced technologies — the types of technologies we have extensive experience with.

If you’re looking to fast-track your journey of innovation in banking, we can help.

Book a discovery call to learn more about how we can help you implement the latest technologies for innovative banking solutions.

Articles

5 Benefits of Open Banking APIs

Benefits of Open Banking APIs in Canada_Blanc Labs

Open banking APIs (application programming interfaces) offer a wide range of benefits for a modern financial institution, from increasing revenue to reducing fraud risk. 

Open banking is finding its way into Canada with the government working hard to set regulations by the tentative launch date of January 2024.  

In the meantime, financial institutions like yours should start preparing. When open banking is introduced to the public, you should be in a position to roll out products and services faster than competitors and with minimal friction. 

Below, we explain the meaning of APIs, the state of open banking in Canada, and how exactly open banking APIs can help your business. 

What is Open Banking? 

Open banking refers to using APIs to access financial data by third parties in a secure manner. 

Customers expect faster, one-stop banking services. So far, customers have relied on third-party services that use screen scraping for non-core banking services like budgeting and financial decision-making. 

Screen scraping leaves your customers vulnerable to multiple types of online threats. In a world rampant with cybercrime, your customers want a safer alternative, and that’s where open banking offers value. 

With open banking, you can securely allow third parties to access your financial data. For example, suppose a fintech app offers AI-based investment advice. 

To offer advice, it needs to look at your current portfolio. You can use open banking to allow the app to access your financial data securely without having to use screen scraping. 

This model offers all parties a benefit — you can use the app faster, the fintech can operate with the bank’s license, and the bank can charge a fee for the customer data. 

Open Banking in Canada 

Open banking is currently unavailable in Canada. The government is developing a roadmap to introduce open banking in Canada safely. 

According to the Final Report from the Advisory Committee on Open Banking, the government has established four groups to provide input on the four fundamental aspects of the open banking framework—accreditation, liability, privacy, and security. 

The original target date to introduce open banking was January 2023. However, the committee is yet to reach a consensus on multiple aspects. 

The Canadian government may take a while to implement open banking. But we’ll likely see key developments in the implementation process over the next few months.  

The government has appointed Abraham Tachjian to develop the open banking framework for Canada. 

Benefits of Open Banking APIs 

While you wait for open banking regulations to become available in Canada, it’s best to prepare your API ecosystem, so you’re ready for open banking when it’s introduced. 

Once you have a mature open banking API ecosystem that’s operational, you’ll benefit in the following ways: 

Increased Revenue 

As a financial institution, you can use open banking APIs to increase revenue in one or more of the following ways: 

  • Partnering with Fintechs offering innovative solutions: You can partner with Fintechs to offer innovative solutions without creating, managing, or innovating products and services in-house. The partnership allows you to offer services your customers expect and improve their end-to-end journey. Of course, these services also create new revenue streams for you. 
  • Selling to Fintechs: As a bank, you can add another revenue source by providing banking-as-a-service (BaaS), where third parties can connect to your database using APIs for a fee. Third parties can use this data to provide value-add services in addition to what regulators mandate. 
  • Optimize your marketing campaigns based on user data: Open banking, combined with data aggregation, provides deeper insights into customers’ behavior and choices. These insights enable you to position your products better and run personalized marketing campaigns, which can increase your overall revenue. 

 

Banking as a Service (BaaS) 

Open banking APIs and Banking-as-a-Service are often used interchangeably. 

However, they’re fundamentally different. BaaS is a business model where banks integrate their services into a third-party’s product or service. 

Fintechs and non-financial companies (NFCs) use BaaS to offer customers better digital banking services, like one-minute loan approvals, without getting their own banking license. This is made possible through open banking APIs. 

BaaS is quickly gaining popularity as customer dissatisfaction with banks’ existing services grow. According to Delloite, 2x ROAA (return on average assets) for banks focused on BaaS offerings. 

A few ways you can monetize by proving BaaS include: 

  • Providing your banking license, technology, and products to other banks, non-financial companies (NFCs), and aggregators. 
  • You can partner with a distributor with excellent end-user relationships to offer innovative financial solutions. 
  • You can partner with an aggregator who acts as a provider-aggregator to provide an out-of-the-box solution by coupling the capabilities of multiple vendors. 

 

Payment as a Service (PaaS) 

Open banking APIs allow you to build faster, more secure bank rails. Once you implement open banking, you can enable users to make direct payments seamlessly without entering card details. 

As a bank, you can use open banking APIs to increase payments’ transparency and scalability by leveraging individual transactions and bi-directional processing. 

With open banking APIs, you can upscale your current payment methods like ACH (Automatic Clearing House Network) and wire transfers. APIs will also enable you to offer modern payment methods like Real-Time Payments (RTPs) and Pay-By-Bank when they become available in Canada. 

Open banking also facilitates payment initiation service (PIS). When a merchant partners with a licensed third party, the third party can initiate a payment on behalf of a customer’s bank account using PIS. 

PIS doesn’t require the customer or merchant to share any sensitive information. The customer simply approves a payment via the banking app with a secret pin or biometric authentication. 

Just like any account-to-account transfer, the money is transferred directly to the merchant’s account within seconds. 

Improved Customer Engagement 

Open banking APIs improve customer engagement by streamlining the onboarding process and offering a one-stop solution for multiple needs. 

For example, open banking APIs can allow biometric logins and authentication to minimize the time it takes your customer to access the account. Your users will be able to complete tasks faster without compromising data security. 

With Canadians worried more than ever about the cost of living crisis in Canada, they’re carefully observing their money. 

Typically, they’d need to source information from individual sources to get a full picture of their financial status in order to make sound financial decisions. 

Open banking APIs can simplify the process by allowing third-party apps to automatically aggregate this information into a single app, improving customer engagement. 

Reduced Risk of Fraud 

Open banking APIs provide access to customer data, allowing more accurate risk profiling. Access to customer data allows incorporating verified identity information, account balances, and transaction patterns into your risk models. 

The UK, where open banking has been available since 2018, has reduced card fraud significantly. In 2021, the UK reduced the losses from card fraud by an impressive £49.2 million. 

The following four things make open banking payments safer: 

  • Each payment uses strong customer authentication (SCA), which was introduced as a requirement in Europe by the revised Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) for ecommerce transactions in 2019. 
  • No sensitive information is required for any open banking use case. 
  • APIs pre-populate payment information. 
  • Open banking providers take care of onboarding the merchants as well as carrying out the necessary due diligence. 

Read More: Open Banking in Canada: How Banks and Customers Can Benefit

Implementing Open Banking APIs with Blanc Labs 

Familiarizing yourself with open banking APIs is critical to ensure you’re equipped with the right knowledge and tools when open banking becomes available in Canada. 

The problem? It can feel daunting. Partnering with the right team can make the process a whole lot easier. 

Blanc Labs, in partnership with Axway and Mulesoft, can help you build a robust open banking API ecosystem. We can answer any questions you have and take care of the end-to-end implementation process.

Book a discovery call with Blanc Labs to learn more about open banking APIs. 

Articles

What is API Management?

What is API Management_Blanc Labs
Illustration by Storyset

Application Programming Interface (API) management has become an increasingly important aspect of modern business operations. With the advent of cloud computing and the need for digital transformation, enterprises are using APIs to enhance their existing applications, develop new applications, and drive innovation. 

According to a study by Forbes, firms that used APIs saw 12.7% growth in their market capitalization over a period of four years. But using APIs is one thing and having an API strategy in place that can enable your business goals is another. 

Proper management of APIs is imperative to support smooth business functioning. From startups to large enterprises, API management has become a critical component for businesses to remain competitive and meet the changing needs of their customers. 

 Whether you are a financial services provider looking to securely integrate third-party services, a retail giant seeking to improve your e-commerce platform, or a healthcare organization seeking to securely exchange medical data, API management can help you achieve your business objectives.   

API Management Components

API management components are the building blocks that make up a comprehensive API management solution. These components work together to enable organizations to effectively manage their APIs and deliver value to their customers and partners. The primary components of API management include: 

API Gateway 

The API gateway is the component that sits at the front end of the API management architecture, acting as a traffic cop for incoming API requests. The API gateway is responsible for routing API requests to the appropriate backend services, applying security and access controls, and transforming data between different formats. The gateway also provides features such as caching, rate limiting, and request and response transformations. 

Developer Portal 

The developer portal is a  platform that provides developers with the information and tools they need to consume and build applications using your APIs. A good developer portal includes detailed documentation, code samples, forums, and tools for testing and debugging. The developer portal is a key component of API management as it helps to foster a community of developers who can help you drive adoption and engagement with your APIs. 

Reporting and Continuous Improvement

Reporting and continuous improvement are essential components of API management as they help organizations understand how their APIs are used, identify improvement areas, and make data-driven decisions about their API strategies. With the help of real-time analytics and usage reports, organizations can track key metrics such as API request volumes, response times, and error rates. This information can then be used to continuously improve the API management process and deliver a better experience to developers and end-users. 

API Lifecycle Management 

API lifecycle management is the process of managing the entire life cycle of an API, from design and development to retirement and deprecation. This includes tasks such as versioning, testing, and publishing APIs, as well as managing security and access controls. API lifecycle management helps to ensure that APIs are managed in a consistent and organized manner, enabling organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements and deliver value to their customers and partners. 

Benefits of an API Management Platform

API management platforms provide a number of benefits to organizations that are looking to leverage APIs to drive innovation and growth. Some of the key benefits include: 

Improved Security 

APIs provide businesses with various benefits such as accessing enterprise services from different devices, promoting innovation, and creating new revenue streams. However, using APIs can also pose risks to data security, which is why it is crucial to protect them with an API manager. API management platforms are essential to ensure the security of APIs as they monitor their usage and implement security protocols such as JWT, OpenID and OAuth. Additionally, API management platforms can provide extra security benefits by controlling access to applications. 

Increased Agility 

API management platforms allow organizations to quickly and easily expose their existing systems and services as APIs. This enables organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements and create new opportunities for growth and innovation. With the ability to easily manage and scale APIs, organizations can quickly and easily adapt to changing business needs.

A good example of this is the Emirates NBD Bank. In an interview with McKinsey, senior bank executives explained how they were able to achieve effectiveness and efficiency by shifting to APIs. “We have enabled several strategic business initiatives as a result. One example is our digital onboarding, which is available on mobile phones for self-service and via tablet for assistance in our branches. “We have onboarded more than 100,000 customers with our new process, doing up to 85 percent with straight-through processing in less than ten minutes,” said Neeraj Makin, group head of international and group strategy. Today, the bank offers more than 800 microservices and have seen over a million interactions in the last two years. 

Improved Developer Experience 

API management platforms provide a centralized location for developers to access and use APIs. With features such as detailed documentation, code samples, and testing tools, API management platforms make it easy for developers to consume and build applications using your APIs. This helps to drive adoption and engagement with your APIs, which can lead to increased revenue and more opportunities for innovation. 

Better Monitoring and Analytics 

API management platforms provide real-time monitoring and analytics capabilities, allowing organizations to track the usage and performance of their APIs. This information can be used to identify areas for improvement, optimize performance, and make data-driven decisions about your API strategy. With a better understanding of how your APIs are being used, you can make informed decisions about how to optimize your API offerings and deliver a better experience to your customers and partners. 

Monetization Opportunities 

API management platforms provide organizations with the tools and capabilities to monetize their APIs. With features such as billing, usage tracking, and rate limiting, organizations can set pricing and usage policies for their APIs, creating new revenue streams and driving growth. 

Top Use Cases for API Management 

The global API management market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 34.5% and reach $41.5 billion by 2031. API management has a wide range of use cases across various industries and sectors. A few of the major use cases are: 

Digital Transformation Initiatives 

API management is an essential component of digital transformation initiatives as it allows organizations to expose their existing systems and services as APIs. This enables organizations to quickly and easily create new applications and services, and drive innovation in a fast-changing digital landscape. With the ability to manage and scale APIs, organizations can respond quickly to changing business requirements and drive growth. 

Open Banking 

Open banking is an emerging trend that is transforming the financial services industry. With open banking, financial institutions can securely share their customer data with third-party providers, enabling new financial products and services to be created. API management is a critical component of open banking as it provides a secure and controlled environment for exchanging financial data, helping to ensure that customer data is protected and that transactions are compliant with regulatory requirements. 

Read more: What is Open Banking and is it available in Canada?

Data Security  

Data security is a critical concern for organizations in a wide range of industries. With API management, organizations can secure their APIs and the sensitive data they carry with features such as authentication, authorization, and encryption. This helps to protect sensitive information and ensures that data is transmitted securely, reducing the risk of data breaches and protecting the reputation of your organization. 

Compliance 

Compliance is an important consideration for organizations in regulated industries such as healthcare and finance. With API management, organizations can ensure that their APIs are compliant with regulatory requirements, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This helps organizations minimize their risk of non-compliance and reduces the risk of costly penalties. 

Custom API Management Solutions from Blanc Labs 

At Blanc Labs, we understand the unique needs and requirements of our clients, and we offer custom API management solutions that are tailored to meet your specific needs. Our API management solutions are designed to provide enterprise organizations with the tools and capabilities they need to drive their digital transformation initiatives, secure their data, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. 

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of API management and how Blanc Labs can help you achieve your goals, we encourage you to book a discovery call with our team. Our experienced consultants will work with you to understand your needs and provide you with a customized solution that is tailored to meet your specific requirements. 

Make the most of your API Strategy. Talk to an Expert.

Articles

What is Open Banking and Is It Available in Canada? 

What is Open Banking in Canada_Blanc Labs
Illustration by Storyset

If you’re a bank or financial institution, you should know what open banking is. Open banking consolidates your customers’ financial information. It allows them to access their financial data via a single banking or third-party app, allowing them to make smarter and faster financial decisions. 

This guide explains open banking, how it works, and its benefits.

What Does Open Banking Mean?

Open banking is a secure framework that facilitates the exchange of financial data between financial institutions and third parties through APIs (application programing interface). 

Think about the last time you wanted to check your investment portfolio. You probably had to log into multiple online portals and bank accounts to get financial information. 

Open banking (also known as consumer-directed or consumer-led banking) can shorten this process to a few minutes by bringing all the information to a single dashboard. 

When you try to access financial information via a fintech app with open banking, your bank transmits data via a secure online channel to the app. More importantly, you don’t need to provide login credentials when using open banking. 

As you can imagine, being able to pull financial data securely from banks and other institutions will allow fintechs and the banks themselves to develop innovative products that enable Canadians to manage finances more effectively. 

How Open Banking Works 

Here is a typical scenario for how open banking works: 

  1. A bank’s customer downloads a fintech app to manage finances and wants to start using it. 
  2. The app needs to access financial data, so it prompts the customer to link their bank accounts. 
  3. The customer authorizes the bank to securely share financial data with the app. 
  4. The bank transmits customer data through a secured online channel. 
  5. The app provides financial insights and recommendations. 

Isn’t that how apps operate anyway? 

Well, yes, except for one key difference. Traditionally, when a person links an app to their bank account, it uses screen scraping and the person’s login credentials to log into it and pull financial data. 

On the other hand, open banking uses APIs (application programming interfaces). In simple terms, APIs allow two systems (the banking system and the third-party app, in this case) to communicate and exchange information securely. 

Banks or financial institutions are responsible for building, implementing and managing the APIs that will allow customers to connect their accounts with new and innovative apps. 

Banks need to find the right API management platform and be mindful of some common open banking API challenges. Alternatively, you can book a discovery call with us, and we’ll take care of the technical aspect of implementing open banking. 

Screen scraping is prone to privacy and security risks since you can’t control how the fintech stores or uses your data. The practice can also violate your bank’s electronic access agreement (EAA), which frees the bank of any liability in case of an unauthorized transaction in your account. 

Screen scraping will likely become obsolete once open banking becomes available in Canada.  

What is Screen Scraping? 

Screen scraping is the process of capturing data present on a screen — from a webpage, document, or app — for using it in another system or app. 

It’s generally used by apps that need to extract data from legacy systems that lack an API management system or any other source of data extraction. 

Data accessed by apps through screen scraping isn’t regulated. Without a standardized system, all third parties use their own level of security and approach to handling data. 

Screen scraping platforms also store login credentials as text strings. The lack of encryption leaves your data vulnerable to attacks from hackers. 

Unfortunately, an estimated four million Canadians are accessing banking-style services via screen scraping. The growing popularity of financial planning apps strongly calls for a more secure, regulated framework like open banking. 

However, open banking still has its limitations. For example, the bank might securely transmit the information to a third party, but if someone hacks the app itself, they might steal your data. So even though open banking is safer than screen scraping, it’s not fully secure. 

Benefits of Open Banking 

The implementation of open banking in Canada will benefit both you and your customers. 

Here are four ways open banking will benefit your customers: 

  • Gives an overview: Open banking provides a secure framework to pull information from your bank accounts, credit cards, investment partners, and other financial institutions. An open banking app can consolidate all your financial data and provide a complete overview in one place without switching between websites and manually extracting information. 
  • Allows shopping around for the best deal: Comparing deals for personal loans, credit cards, or mortgages requires careful research. A comparison app using open banking can speed up the process and help you find the best deal. Apps can also help you understand how likely you are to qualify if you apply for a loan based on your financial information. 
  • Speeds up the application process: Applying for loans or credit requires submitting information, including your financial statements and KYC documents. Instead of manually submitting these documents, an app can store them for you and submit them as necessary when applying for a loan or opening an investment account. 
  • Helps make smarter financial decisions: Fintech apps can use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create financial roadmaps based on your financial data. You can use these apps to create a budget, understand your spending habits, and find the best investment options based on your risk appetite. Apps may also project cash flows based on your budget and financial obligations so that you can estimate the available balance in your account at the end of each month. 

 

Here are four ways open banking benefits you as a bank or financial institution: 

  • Collaborate with third parties: Collaborating with third-party apps can help you explore data-sharing agreements and identify new opportunities. You can streamline processes and offer more related services to stay ahead of the competition. 
  • Prepare for the future: Open banking isn’t available in Canada, but it soon will be. Over time, your customers will likely demand the privacy and security that open banking offers. As data privacy laws evolve, open banking will ensure you’re in an excellent position to adapt to changes. Moreover, quickly becoming compliant with evolving rules without interrupting service improves customer experience. 
  • Increase market share: Your customers crave convenience. Allowing them to consolidate financial information securely ensures excellent customer experience. Offering open banking is critical to fulfilling your customer’s demands. Over time, you might even lose market share by not offering open banking. 
  • Lower operating costs: Open banking ensures banks’ data lives in a centralized, digitally accessible location. This minimizes data silos and facilitates automation. Automating banking processes like mortgage underwriting allows you to reduce operating costs. 

Read more: Open Banking in Canada: How Banks and Customers Can Benefit

Open Banking in Canada 

While open banking is currently unavailable in Canada, it’s available in countries like the UK and Australia. 

The Canadian government is working on safely implementing open banking in Canada. The government appointed Abraham Tachjian to lead Canada’s open banking framework development initiative in March 2022. 

According to the Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Open Banking, the government had set a target to make open banking operational by January 2023, but implementation is still under process. 

However, the government is committed to implementing open banking at the earliest and realizes the benefits it can offer to Canadians. 

For example, when asked about how open banking can address the challenges facing BIPOC Canadians, small businesses, and rural/remote communities, Tachijan explained: 

“While Canada’s banking framework aims to ensure all Canadians have access to basic bank accounts, some Canadians may be underbanked. Open Banking creates the opportunity for consumer-led banking, which gives consumers and businesses greater control and protection over their financial data, as well as more transparency on how it’s used.” 

While the government lays the groundwork to implement open banking, you should ensure you have everything set up to offer customers open banking soon after it becomes available in Canada. 

Is Your Financial Institution Ready for Open Banking? 

Open banking is about to transform the financial services industry. Your customers will have the flexibility to choose how they interact with your bank, and your competitors will have the option to offer innovative solutions. 

Implementing open banking can feel daunting, but partnering with the right team can simplify the process. 

Blanc Labs helps banks implement open banking from scratch. Book a discovery call  to learn more about our open banking solutions.  

Articles

What Is Composable Banking and Why Should I Care?

by David Offierski

Composable Banking is a technology and transformation approach that addresses the simple fact that change is constant. To ensure that banks and FI’s can innovate swiftly and maintain the greatest level of control over their product roadmap, they must adopt a modular or “swappable” architecture. The characteristics that define Composable banking follow the MACH principles: Microservices, API First, Cloud Native, Headless.

In a world that is evolving at an ever-increasing pace, it can seem as though the velocity of technology trends is starting to reflect the feverish pace of modern-day news cycles.  It can be hard to keep up with all that is happening across the financial services industry and a lot of the content out there is often decorated in painful consulting speak.  That is why we view it as our accountability to sift through the noise and develop an informed opinion on the what, why, and how of emerging trends that our clients and ecosystem partners need to know about.   

A significant shift is underway in terms of how banks and FI’s do transformation work reflecting similar (r)evolutions in other industries like eCommerce and tech platform players like Apple and Google. The term that is being increasingly adopted to encompass a broad cross-section of tech evolution amongst financial institutions is composable banking.  

Composable banking is a technology-enabled approach to delivering financial products and services to customers and ecosystem partners.  It is a banking transformation approach that addresses the simple fact that change is constant. To ensure that banks and FI’s can innovate swiftly and have an agile experience roadmap, they must own a modular “swappable” architecture. This is the only way to deploy new features rapidly and retain control of their destiny. 

Modular banking is not composable banking

First, let us define the characteristics of composable banking by delineating how it is different from the traditional, modular approach offered by E2E core banking systems provided by established SaaS vendors.  They have been using a modular approach to extend the functionality of their core systems, whereby their propriety modules are extensible but are neither flexible nor open.     

Composable banking is a solution approach that prioritizes integration readiness and flexibility, allowing organizations to dramatically improve the speed at which a company can onboard a new partner or design, build, test and deploy a new product.  This is relevant for value-driven business transformations aiming to build differentiating customer experiences while setting up a future-proof, flexible and cost-effective IT landscape.  

What you are Composed of matters 

Composable banking is enabled through the adoption of MACH characteristics to define how an organization approaches developing and supporting technology to enable new customer experiences and improve business operations.  

Microservices

M: Individual pieces of business functionality that are independently developed, deployed, and managed. 

With a microservices architecture, an application is built as independent components that run each application process as a service. 

These services communicate via a well-defined interface using lightweight APIs. Services are built for business capabilities and each service performs a single function. Because they are independently run, each service can be updated, deployed, and scaled to meet the demand for specific functions of an application.

Microservices Enabled Banking Example: 

 Monzo is a UK based neo-bank that has written extensively about their API-first approach and how they scale, secure, and manage over the over 2000 microservices that power their banking experiences. 

API First

A: All functionality is exposed through an API. 

API-first is a product-centric approach to developing APIs. It views the role of APIs as discrete products, rather than integrations subsumed within other systems. 

 Developing and managing microservices in an API-first approach means that APIs become key inputs to determine & define product functionality.  This means that the people developing against your API are your users, and your API needs to be designed with those users in mind. 

An API-first mindset requires adopting product management best practices to ensure the services evolve to meet the needs of users (developers), particularly around the characteristics of flexibility, interoperability and reusability.   

API-First Banking Example: 

Citibank is one such organization that follows an API-first approach in its path to digital transformation and empowers a developer ecosystem for innovation. Citi’s global consumer bank serves 62 million clients in 35 countries and uses APIs to build many of its consumer facing digital products. 

Cloud Native

C: SaaS that leverages the cloud, beyond storage and hosting, including elastic scaling and automatically updating.  

 Cloud-native technologies empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments such as public, private, and hybrid clouds.  They feature containers, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative APIs to exemplify this approach. 

 Cloud-native banks leverage core banking systems built in the cloud and for the cloud to enjoy benefits such as scalability, flexibility, availability and elasticity, amongst others. 

Cloud Native Banking Example: 

 In September 2021, JP Morgan Chase announced that it would migrate its retail core banking assets to the Google Cloud Platform and leverage Thought Machine cloud native core banking system. 

Headless

H: Headless architecture enables an organization to evolve from a monolithic approach to service delivery to an ecosystem model.  

Front-end presentation is decoupled from back-end logic and channel, programming language, and is framework agnostic. 

Enables the ability to seamlessly embed secure banking services into a variety of customer touchpoints.   e.g., Apple Pay, ACH money transfers, budgeting and billing platforms.

Headless Architecture Banking Example: 

Using the API’s available through Temenos core banking platform, EQ Bank was able to act as a deposit-taking backend for Wealthsimple to launch high-interest savings account offering to WS clients in Canada. 

 

In the image below, we’ve highlighted some of the intended outcomes FI’s can expect to benefit from as they undertake the development of a digital transformation strategy and embark on a journey that can only be described as iterative and incremental. Spoiler alert: the work is never done.  The goal though is that with investment and dedication it goes faster and gets easier to measure.  

What is composable banking

“Almost half of the global financial services organizations are still in a very early or even immature stage of their digital transformation journey.”  

– Juergen Weiss, FI Practice Vice-President at Gartner 

Digital Transformation is the entire journey by which a financial institution seeks to digitize and automate its processes to improve its products and customer experiences and expand into newer, untapped markets with speed and greater operating efficiency.   

For those organizations that are still in the early stages of planning and prioritizing their transformation initiative, the breadth of choice, cost, and complexity can be daunting. Some of the activities required to achieve MACH characteristics require major infrastructure upgrades and the migration will most likely be implemented over a multi-year horizon.  

Status of core banking initiatives

A Composable Approach to Digital Transformation 

Developing a composable transformation approach should allow for multi-threaded initiatives that support the broader objectives. For this reason, we often work with clients to highlight one to two areas of opportunity, whereby organizations can see an immediate ROI in terms of CX and operational efficiency.   

Initiatives like implementing an intelligent document capture platform to reduce manual data entry into a Loan Origination Systems (LOS) or conducting an API Maturity assessment allow FI’s to realize immediate benefits while building transformation capability and creating foundational progress towards a future state that reflects the characteristics of composable banking.  

Curious about how you can develop a composable transformation approach at your organization? Book a workshop with Blanc Labs.

Articles

Finding the right API Management Platform

APIs are an integral part of today’s digital world. They are used for secure data exchange, integration, and content syndication. As APIs become more ubiquitous in enterprise businesses, it becomes necessary to manage them efficiently.

Blanc Labs API management

Banking and Payments ecosystems are converging with Open Banking and Finance. Whether regulatory or market driven, these digital interactions are happening already – and growing exponentially. Doing APIs and API Management right are central to the growing interdependence and interoperability between Fintechs, Banks and Consumers. Stakeholders are demanding secure access to financial data to drive better customer experiences. A key enabler to that end are the systems that surround APIs.

What is API Lifecycle Management?

API Lifecycle Management is the process of building, controlling, distributing, analyzing, and reusing APIs. It also can include capabilities around intelligent discovery; one pane of glass visible across multiple API gateways and API management systems; bringing to life the visionary end state of monetizing and marketing all these capabilities to external parties to operationalize the concept of “API as a product”. Thus, there are many API Management solutions in the market offering a variety of features. But at the very minimum, an API Manager should allow users to do the following:

Discover APIs

Before you can more effectively govern their lifecycle, you need a simple and configurable tool to find, filter and tag all your API assets into a centralized repository. Simplify complexity and/or get better visibility and facts to position your organization to “open itself up” to the new business realities and opportunities emerging.


Design, build, and Test APIs


The API Management tool should provide everyone, from developers to partners, the ability to create APIs under a unified catalog and test their performance.


Deploy APIs


API Management tools should also allow you to publish APIs on-premises, on the cloud or in a hybrid environment. Additionally, the API Manager may give you a choice between managing the API infrastructure in the tool itself or on your own.


Secure APIs

By providing a central point of control, most API Management tools will ensure that you have full visibility of all your APIs across environments so you can mitigate any vulnerabilities.


Manage APIs


API Management tools should give you a central plane of visibility into APIs, events, and microservices. Most API management tools will allow you to govern APIs across all environments (on-premise, hybrid, cloud) and also allow you to integrate with other infrastructures, including AWS, Azure, and Mulesoft. A good API management tool should also provide multiple predefined policy filters to accelerate policy configuration.


Analyze APIs


An API Manager should give you real time metrics in a unified catalog. By providing data on the business performance or operations across your APIs, you can make better decisions leading to improved business results.


Extend and Reuse APIs


By giving you a single, unified catalog, an API Manager can eliminate duplication and extend the life of APIs through reuse.

The need for API Management

API management centralizes control of your API program—including analytics, access control, monetization, and developer workflows. It provides dependability, flexibility (to adapt to shifting needs), quality, and speed. To achieve these goals, an API Manager should, at the minimum, offer rate limits, access control, and usage policies. 

Essential features of an API Manager tool 

1. API Gateways 

 A gateway is the single entry point for all clients and is the most critical aspect of API management. An API gateway handles all the data routing requests and protocol translations between third-party providers (TPP) and the client. Gateways are equally important when securing API connections by deploying authentication and enforcement protocols.

2. Developer Portal 

 The primary use of the developer portal is to provide a hub, specifically for developers, to access and share API documentation. It is an essential part of streamlining communications between teams. Typically, developer portals are built on content management systems (CMS), allowing developers to explore, read, and test APIs. Other features of a developer portal could include chat forums for the internal and external developer community and FAQs. 

3. API Lifecycle Management 

 As the name suggests, API Lifecycle Management provides an end-to-end view of how to manage APIs. API Lifecycle Management is a means to create a secure ecosystem for building, deploying, testing and monetizing and marketing APIs. 

4. Analytics engine 

The analytics engine identifies usage patterns, analyzes historical data, and creates tests for API performance to detect integration issues and assist in troubleshooting. The information gathered by the analytics engine can be used by business owners and technology teams to optimize their API offerings and improve them over time. 

5. API monetization and marketing 

API management tools can provide a framework for pricing and packaging APIs for partners and developers. Monetizing APIs involves generating revenue and keeping the API operational for consumers. Through usage contracts, you can monetize the microservices behind APIs. An API management tool will offer templatized usage contracts based on predefined metrics, including the number of API calls. This empowers innovative external players to help drive your business in ways you have not dreamed up yet – and still do it securely. 

How successful is your API management?

Now that we know the features of an ideal API management software, how do you evaluate its success for your API efforts? Here are a few ways to track your progress:

Speed
How rapidly can you launch your APIs to meet your business goals? Latency and throughput are ways to measure the speed of deployment. Other areas to measure speed would be onboarding and upgrading APIs.


Flexibility
Flexibility is the breadth of options available to developers when adopting APIs. The greater the flexibility, the higher the cost and effort to manage the API.


Dependability
How available your APIs are to developers. One way to measure dependability is downtime. Quota is another way to restrict how many API calls can be made by a developer within a certain timeframe. Enforcing quotas makes API management more predictable and protects the API from abuse.


Quality
Stable APIs with consistent performance reflect higher quality. It is a way to measure a developer’s satisfaction with the API.


Cost
The above four factors contribute to cost. If your API management software provides a better view of all your APIs, it will reduce duplication and costs. Reuse of APIs is another way that you can save costs.

How are you managing API complexity?

If you are a business leader concerned about how to meet market demand through the creation and deployment of APIs, or you would like to monetize and reuse your existing APIs and reduce costs, then you need structured API management. 

In partnership with Axway, Blanc Labs offers a way to manage your APIs to bring maximum business value. Axway’s API Management Platform enables enterprises to manage and govern their APIs for developing and applying their digital services. 

Book a discovery call with Blanc Labs to learn more. 

News

Blanc Labs and Axway partner up to provide integrated open banking solutions for all

Posted on 5 October 2022

Axway (Euronext: AXW.PA), a leading provider of open banking built on the Amplify API management platform, is proud to announce its partnership with Blanc Labs, a trusted financial service and healthcare innovation partner.

While the largest banks are already well along their digital journey, many others are still tasked with competing in what can feel like an uneven playing field. Financial institutions must have a clear strategy for implementing, governing, monetizing, and marketing APIs to ensure a frictionless customer experience and better business results.

“We want to help all banks – anyone who has something to bring to the table – to strategize and compete in the open banking arena,” said Eyal Sivan, Head of Open Banking at Axway. “They will thrive as they embrace open APIs, build on trusted customer relationships, and meet their customers’ needs wherever they are.”

“At Blanc Labs, we help our clients achieve extraordinary results by accelerating their digital transformation journey,” says Blanc Labs CEO Hamid Akbari. “APIzation will enable secure data interoperability within the financial services ecosystem. Open banking and Banking-as-a-Service pose a disruption challenge as well as a massive growth opportunity for banks and fintechs.”

The specialized solutions offered by Blanc Labs together with Axway make API integrations more efficient and cost-effective thanks to universal API management. Benefits of the unified API platform include:

  1. Increased productivity as developers easily find and repurpose APIs, eliminating duplication of efforts
  2. Less technical complexity by unifying and simplifying API services across the organization
  3. Stronger security thanks to a unified, vendor-agnostic view of all APIs
  4. Faster legacy system upgrades through an API-first layer, which simplifies the addition of new services
  5. More robust governance through centralized documentation for multiple developer teams

“Partnering with Axway, a pioneer in API management and the open banking space, is a natural fit for us. Out-of-the-box support for open banking and common data standards will significantly reduce the cost of building next-gen financial services and will accelerate time-to-market for our clients,” Akbari adds.

As banks gain confidence with Axway and Blanc Labs open banking solutions, they can move from optimizing processes and keeping up with industry standards to unlocking new business models, discovering richer customer data insights, and building highly personalized services to delight their clients.

Learn more about the Axway-Blanc Labs partnership and how they can help banks fully participate in the growing open banking ecosystem, here.

About Blanc Labs

Blanc Labs is a preferred partner for enterprises looking to digitize and build the next generation of technology products and services. To help companies rapidly deliver on their digital initiatives, Blanc Labs has developed expertise and bespoke solutions in a wide variety of applications in  financial services, healthcare, enterprise productivity and customer experience. Headquartered in Toronto, Blanc Labs serves the Americas through operations in Toronto, New York, Bogota and Buenos Aires. For more information on how Blanc Labs is building a better future, visit www.blanclabs.com.

About Axway

Axway enables enterprises to securely open everything by integrating and moving data across a complex world of new and old technologies. Axway’s API-driven B2B integration and MFT software, refined over 20 years, complements Axway Amplify, an open API management platform that makes APIs easier to discover and reuse across multiple teams, vendors, and cloud environments. Axway has helped over 11,000 businesses unlock the full value of their existing digital ecosystems to create brilliant experiences, innovate new services, and reach new markets. Learn more at axway.com.

 

Articles

5 Factors to Evaluate Open Banking Readiness in Canada

By Steven Chung and Rishi Khanna

open banking readiness

Open banking’s first phase is almost upon us. Now more than ever, banks will need to address their digital and core systems if they wish to participate and gain from the new banking regime. The need for seamless digital experiences, especially post Covid, is shaping customers’ expectations from banks and financial institutions too. Roughly $416 billion is up for grabs and if the prediction holds true that open banking adoption will increase by 76% in the next three years, then incumbents should begin preparing themselves without delay.  

What is Open Banking?  

Open banking is a way for financial services customers to securely share their financial data with other financial institutions and third-party providers using APIs governed and regulated by universally accepted protocols. Open banking exists in several countries around the world including the UK, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore.  

The Benefits of Open Banking 

Open banking is pushing banks to innovate and play nice with Fintechs. In the UK, where open banking launched shortly before COVD-19, the use of Fintech applications for money management rose by 20% for adults and 50% for young adults. Banks, as trusted custodians of customers’ data, can take advantage of the new Fintech technologies that have sprung up as a result of open banking to deepen customer relationships and retain them by providing valuable insights on their personal or commercial finances instead of just facilitating transactions.  

5 Factors to Assess Open Banking Readiness in Canada 

The first phase of open banking in Canada will begin in January 2023. Many banks and credit unions are in the midst of preparing themselves for open banking. But just how ready are they? 

 Here are 5 Factors recommended by Blanc Labs to evaluate if you are ready for open banking: 

Factor 1: Your core and digital banking systems are up to date 

Your financial institution’s core and digital banking systems are scalable, compatible with other new technologies. You have web-banking and mobile banking platforms for retail and commercial customers. Most processes are automated, minimizing manual intervention. The core banking and digital channel systems are cloud-native.  

Factor 2: You have identified business use cases for open banking 

You have identified use cases for open banking at your institution and you would now like to invest in an API-led ecosystem to monetize your data. Open banking use cases could include Account Aggregation, BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later), and Tax preparation.  

Factor 3: Your organization is united in reaching its transformation goals 

You have a non-traditional approach to growth and view open banking as a strategic imperative towards creating new lines of revenue for your business. As such, you have budgets dedicated to open banking efforts. You are looking at ways to improve how to use your data through TPPs (third-party providers) to create relationships with other financial institutions and non-banking entities and turn them into new offerings for your customers.  

Factor 4: Your API-ecosystem is mature 

Your organization has been creating APIs for internal and external consumption for some years. There is a standardization and documentation around maintenance, governance, security, and management of APIs. There is visibility over the entire API catalogue and tooling to track and monitor API performance. You participate in agile data partnerships with Fintechs, which means your onboarding processes are thorough, but quick.  

Factor 5: You can operationalize APIs and use them as products 

That leads us to the final step. Your organization can support third-party use, both in terms of system bandwidth as well as security. Your systems can take high traffic load. You are primed to use API-as-a-Product.  

Do you have an Open Banking strategy? 

Still unsure? Apart from readying the underlying enabling technology considerations, Open Banking is fundamentally a business decision and a discussion about how to best compete and win in the new banking environment.  Here is a handy Digital Maturity Assessment from Axway that can help you figure out what stage you are at and what to do next. Blanc Labs in partnership with Axway offers an Open Banking Strategy Workshop that can help you: 

  1. Define your financial institution’s goals for growth 
  2. Analyze the current state of your organization and what you need to meet your long-term goals 
  3. Identify challenges that you need to beat to ensure you can take full advantage of open banking 
  4. Zone in on use cases that will give you the biggest ROIs and the fastest time to value 

Book an Open Banking Strategy Workshop with Blanc Labs to learn more.

Articles

Open Banking in Canada: How Banks and Customers Can Benefit

By Bob Paajanen & Steven Chung

Open banking benefits Canada

Exactly a year ago, the Department of Finance released the final report from the Advisory Committee on Open Banking. It set an ambitious 18-month roadmap for Open Banking implementation in Canada. With 2023 just a few months away, it is crucial that financial institutions understand the advantages of open banking and the possibilities it can bring, not just for themselves but also for their customers. 

What is Open Banking? 

Simply put, Open Banking is a way for business owners and customers to share their data with their financial institution (and connected third-party providers or TPP) securely using APIs governed and regulated by universally accepted protocols. Customers will have full control over how much and with whom they would like to share this data. They will also have a unified view of all their balances, credit cards, mortgages, investments, and any financial transactions across all banking entities. For this reason, open banking is also sometimes referred to as “consumer-permissioned data sharing” or open finance.   

Open banking started in 2016 with European governments pushing for more open financial data and laying the foundations for banking evolution. The EU’s second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) was a powerful legislation that made an impact on the UK’s Competition & Market Authority (CMA) which mandated that nine of the country’s largest banks develop an “open banking standard” and enable customers to share data with Fintechs and third parties. 

Open banking is now present in several parts of the world, including Australia, Brazil, India, and South Korea, where it is government-led, and in countries like China and the US, where it is primarily market-led. 

Data Sharing in Open Banking  

Before open banking, banks would share data with third-party providers (TPP) or applications using a process called ‘screen scraping’, where data is taken from one app through user details, copied and pasted for another purpose. A good example of this might be a typical finance aggregator app that sends a bot to the bank’s website on behalf of the customer and uses the consumer’s bank login and password to access all their financial information. About 3.5 to 4 million Canadians currently use apps that employ screen scraping. Until now, these TPPs did not have a formal relationship with banks and had access to more information than was necessary. Banks often were unaware of which data was scraped, yet they would be accountable if and when there were data breaches. 

 With new regulations around data sharing, banks will now share only relevant data with TPPs, with the customer’s consent, through APIs or application programming interfaces. Customers will no longer have to share their banking credentials with the TPP. Thanks to this change, many Fintechs that offer open API-led data-sharing networks have come to the fore. 

 As we move closer to 2023, several incumbents and challenger banks are partnering with data aggregators that provide API-led data-sharing networks, which will allow customers to securely share their data with several Fintech applications and provide them with financial insights in real time. Recent examples include EQ Bank’s partnership with Flinks, CIBC’s participation in the MX network and RBC’s partnership with the Plaid and Yodlee networks. 

Why is this happening?  An example will illustrate the opportunity and upside for industry participants. When a customer or their Fintech requests data from multiple financial institutions, aggregators like the entities named above will be able to monetize and sell via subscription the data to each financial institution. This can generate insights around where customers are at risk, or have relationships with other financial institutions, even though the details will be masked.  Better customer profiling can be driven from empirical data through this data sharing model. 

Open Banking and Digital Transformation 

Nearly every, if not all, industries are going through a digital transformation. Long before open banking, many Fintechs had begun unbundling financial services. This trend has only accelerated thanks to open banking. In Europe, for example, TPPs grew from 100 to 450 in between 2019 and 2021. Financial services are now being restructured around “jobs to be done” rather than just products, creating better experiences and value for customers. Open banking will lead to two major outcomes when it comes to data: Interoperability and Automation. By making financial data interoperable, new customer value propositions could be created that offer better access and user convenience thereby creating new revenue streams for the bank. Once customers get a clear and unified view of their financial position, automation rules could take over to help with better decision-making to manage daily finances. This will make it possible for banks to cross-sell products and services without the customer ever leaving the bank’s ecosystem.   

How Open Banking Benefits Financial Institutions 

It is obvious to see the customer benefits of open banking. But what about financial institutions? One of the major reasons why open banking is seen as a catalyst by many governments and markets, is that it will boost growth and increase economic efficiency. One report from McKinsey estimates that the adoption of open banking could result in “1 to 1.5 percent of GDP in 2030 in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, to as much as 4 to 5 percent in India.” Another study reveals that $416 billion in revenue is up for grabs for those financial institutions that are agile enough to jump in on the opportunity. 

Hyper-targeting and faster onboarding 

A more holistic view of an individual or SMB’s finances means that banks too can make more customized offerings to their customer. Open data sharing will also make it easier and faster for customers to switch accounts, purchase new products or get approved for lines of credit. 

Reduced operational costs  

A lot of data remains in physical documents and disparate digitized sources. An open financial data system will ensure that the data is held digitally in a centralized location and make it easier for banks to adopt automation methods, thereby cutting operational costs. This is especially true for mortgage underwriting, where intelligent data processing and management can save between $7,000-9,000 per mortgage application. Here are more reasons banks can benefit from automating data intake and processing. 

Better security 

Fraud accounts for $4.5 trillion per year, which is equal to about 5% of global corporate revenue. Open banking may introduce a single-use digital token system compared to screen scraping, which is risky and open to misuse. Bad actors will have little to no access to customers’ login information during transactions, thereby reducing the risk of data breaches. Data sharing in real-time, could also provide a better view of suspicious activities and build predictive models to mitigate fraud. 

Lead Generation 

Banks acquire information from TPPs, such as credit bureaus, about potential customers during lead generation or mortgage origination. In the US, for example, nearly 50% of loan originators depend on third parties for information related to credit, KYC, and property valuation, costing banks up to $80 per application. Open data sharing enabled by APIs could potentially reduce the cost of acquiring this information and make it available securely to more financial institutions. 

Are you ready for open banking? 

Digital transformation has changed the way banks engage with their customers. With open banking, we are at the pivotal moment where customers can choose the services and products that work best for them, while banks and FintTechs can come up with innovative new ways to engage with them. Opening up banking systems can be a daunting change for banks that have operated through a linear chain thus far. Blanc Labs, in partnership with Axway Open Banking, offers a step-by-step approach for banks to: 

  • Build on existing infrastructure to reach their open banking goals faster 
  • Unlock the potential of their existing data to create new business opportunities 
  • Create a security layer for identification and consent to comply with the latest open banking standards
  • Discover, Manage, govern, market and monetize their APIs 

 

Book a demo or discovery session with Blanc Labs to learn about the impact of our Open Banking solutions.  

 

Articles

Transforming a Bank’s Value Network with Automation

By Abhijit Chakarvarty

Michael Porter’s value chain has been one of the top seminal business management ideas that saw business operations with through a new lens. Just like the value chain resulted in concepts like value creation and value pricing leading to phenomenal growth in global business scale and operations in the last 50 years, we are now seeing a similar scenario in the financial services industry with intelligent automation.  

At the turn of the century, we saw a new concept emerge that resulted in changing the business dynamics in the Y2K. This new business concept came to be known as value network, a series of interactions between individuals, entities, organizations, departments, and systems that collectively work towards benefitting the entire group or ecosystem. This new concept had an astounding impact on how businesses and markets operated and paved the course of today’s business ecosystem. For instance, the rise of Apple and its ecosystem can be attributed to this shift.  

A similar shift is also taking place in the financial services industry, where the digitization, embedment, and now decentralization of the payments ecosystem with the commercialization of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, procure to pay (P2P) lending are being touted as the next big thing. 

Given the pervasive technical and innovative initiatives that are emerging at breakneck speed, it is a necessity necessary to keep transforming and innovating. This is especially relevant for the financial services industry which have millennials as customers and will soon begin catering to GenZ.

To digitally transform a bank’s value network let’s start by stating the three core areas of a bank’s value network namely, network promotion & contract management, service provisioning & billing, and platform operations. 

With a two-sided value network, the bank fundamentally connects a borrower with a depositor and thus, becomes the enabler of value creation for such a network. In doing so, a bank delivers core banking and back-office operations, payments and lending functions, and risk and treasury management activities.  

For each of these areas, hundreds of functions and duties must be seamlessly executed with precision. Today, the increase in business volumes and scale of operations has led to bankers asking, “What if these complex and time-consuming operations can be boosted with robots (bots) assisting humans to accelerate speed, increase productivity, and assure the precision of key banking functions?”  

Automation Banking Benefits

Some of the key operational areas where bots can and, in many cases, are assisting humans to realize the true potential of an enterprise are customer service, compliance accounts payable, credit card processing, mortgage processing, fraud detection, know your customer (KYC) process, general ledger, report automation and account closure process. 

Automation Process heatmap

By embracing bots, banks can improve the customer experience while reducing costs and improving efficiency. Increased automation combined with more efficient processes makes the day-to-day easier for teams and individual contributors as they will spend less time on tedious manual work, and more time on profitable projects. Let humans contribute to high-value innovation, and robots help in maintaining and running operations to ensure an efficient and effective enterprise. To realize the true value of bots, and for a bank to embark on its digital transformation journey, the right approach, executive sponsor, business alignment, process discovery & design, pilot, roadmap, and a center of excellence (CoE) is essential to succeed. By using tactics such as data alignment, problem framing, road mapping, and piloting new robots, a bank will be well poised to reach its automation goals.

Blanc Labs has deep industry knowledge and proven experience working with leading banks to gain efficiencies through intelligent automation solutions. We take a holistic approach, helping financial services companies build the necessary foundation and setting them up for long-term success. 

Book a consultation with Blanc Labs to discover the impact of our Intelligent Automation solution. 

 

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