Payments, data and fintech: bank APIs for generating business

Endless possibilities are opening up to application developers, who can now resort to a sizeable handful of APIs to offer more services from their platforms. There are lots of startups offering tools and financial platforms in which developers have many possibilities.
Payments, data and fintech: bank APIs for generating business
Payments, data and fintech: bank APIs for generating business

BBVA API Market

Endless possibilities are opening up to application developers, who can now resort to a sizeable handful of APIs to offer more services from their platforms. There are lots of startups offering tools and financial platforms in which developers have many possibilities.

While fintech still remains the undisputed emerging star of the entrepreneurial scene to the extent that the capital of this singular sector, which combines banking and technology, (now surpasses €11,000 million), endless possibilities are opening up to application developers, who can now resort to a sizeable handful of APIs to offer more services from their platforms.

In this way, bank APIs have proven the perfect tool for generating business in all types of companies. Stripe is one of the clearest examples of this. Although the most popular and widely used payment platform in the world  (with more than 180 million users) is PayPal, the service provided by this British startup via its API has already been used by technological giants such as Kickstarter, Twitter, Pinterest and even Apple: Cupertino employed the services provided by this company for the system of its brand-new Apple Pay.

Founded by the Collison brothers, Stripe offers an online and mobile transaction service that not only guarantees security, as it does not store any purchaser data in the server of the sellers, but also offers facilities for developers with a simple implementation.

Still, fintech does not live by payments alone. Data are now another of the many paths with which a bank API can open up a door when it comes to generating business. This is precisely what is being done by Xignite, which provides cloud space for the storage of financial data.

With more than 15,000 requests per month at present, Xignite was one of the pioneering companies in offering an API that could feed databases in real time. Used in various applications and websites, the tool not only makes it possible to purchase and store data obtained from the financial market, but does so on the basis of simplicity: one can implement the Xignite API in only three code lines.

Another case in which fintech data offer business possibilities via an API is that of Kontomatik, which not only contributes a user authentication tool for any financial application but also collects the data of the customers’ bank accounts for processing and for showing contextual offers on the basis of this information.

MasterCard is also trying to find its way into the application development world, offering different tools that combine both business opportunities. It also allows transfers between people or companies with its API MoneySend. At the same time, the credit and debit card company offers, with its MasterCard Location Services API, a tool with which to contribute specific data on the availability of the various payment services according to wherever the user happens to be.

Thus, the API of MasterCard, implemented in any financial application, is based on location to gain access to a comprehensive database with information on nearby tellers and, moreover, the stores in which emerging, innovative payment options are accepted.

These and other APIs that open up new business opportunities on the basis of the fintech world make it possible for the financial sector to advance without renouncing such important matters as privacy.

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