Hi. My name is Roland Mesters and I am the CEO of Nordigen. Today I would like to tell you about a new type of banking - Open Banking - which allows you to improve competition in the market, intensify the development of technologies in the financial sector and offer more profitable services for clients of banks and financial institutions.
Open Banking is not a new concept or technology. Open Banking or “open banking” is a system that allows banks to share customer data with third parties solely at the request of the users themselves. This is done using the API, special tools, thanks to which one program can interact with another. APIs are used in all online programs that transmit information or content. Without them, mobile apps and streaming services would not exist.
The concept of Open Banking began to be implemented several years ago, and nowadays it continues to improve. In Europe, Open Banking is regulated by the PSD2 directive. This directive obliges banking organizations to provide access to a number of data via the Open API. Read more about the technology, its advantages and implementation nuances - under the cut.
Open Banking provides new opportunities for all participants in the financial technology (fintech) market - from banks to users of services and services of banking and financial organizations.
Banks
Banking organizations that join the Open Banking initiative open APIs for a range of service providers, and in return gain access to the APIs of other companies, expanding their capabilities.
After the implementation of Open Banking, banks can cooperate with each other, providing clients with a service for viewing account data not only in the current bank, but also in partner banks.
In addition, banks that have joined this initiative can assess the financial "behavior" of customers not only on the basis of their own information, but also on the information that they received from partners.
In general, Open Banking is a path to technological progress of services and services, which allows active development in the modern world. The concept was conceived as a tool for interaction between banks - not in one country, but around the world, as well as a tool for integrating new technologies in the fintech industry. This idea was implemented, so now the project continues to actively develop.
Clients
A number of new tools are opened for users of banking services and services. The most revealing of these is the ability to use a single application to control all your accounts in different banks. Before that, different banking applications had to be used to execute a new transaction or view balances at different banks. Open Banking, on the other hand, allows you to perform all these operations in one interface.
In addition, such a global service is an excellent tool for controlling expenses and income, since it collects information from different banks, not just one. The program can analyze this information, structure and help make decisions on optimizing costs, obtaining more profitable loans, etc.
These tips include investments - the application "prompts" the user, based on information about the income received in the current month, how much he can invest.
These features can be implemented only if the user consents to the use of his data. And this just can be difficult - after all, not all bank customers agree to be "open".
Last but not least, as mentioned above, Open Banking is regulated by the PSD2 directive, which requires banks to comply with legal regulations regarding personal data. Only the client of the bank, and no one else, has the right to control their data. How well this requirement is being met is another matter. What does control of personal data mean? For example, a client of one bank has the right to transfer his entire financial and credit history to another bank, if necessary. In a normal situation, the bank does not give other financial and banking organizations access to this information, so if a person changes the bank, his financial history (not to be confused with credit) is to some extent reset to zero.
To summarize, members of the Open Banking ecosystem can offer more value-added services to customers than traditional organizations. At the same time, services are also personalized, which simplifies and improves the interaction of users, banks and financial institutions.
To connect to the Open API, you can use services developed by different organizations. There are several of them, and one of them is Nordigen. We are the only organization that provides this service for free. About 2000 banks and software developers work with the company's platform.
Access to the Nordigen API is free, as is the ability to work with the API. Its advantages are versatility, intuitiveness and customizability. All this makes it possible to ensure the connection of user accounts to the application. Plus, Nordingen's data analytics tools enable bank developers to extract insights from banking materials to help them build their applications faster.
The integration stage does not take long. This usually takes one to two weeks, but in some cases this process can be shortened to 1 day. If a company needs analytical tools, Nordigen can also provide such a service.
To test our product, we suggest following this link by entering your email and setting a password. Then you need to click on the "Company" button, after which you can invite users from your company.
After that comes the testing stage. To test the success of the integration, it is best to connect, first, your own bank accounts. After the developer chooses “Connect New Bank”, he will need to select the country and the bank to which the connection is going. After that, you will be redirected to the authentication page, where you will need to enter the connection data.
All data on the bank is available only to the account owner. Other team members do not see this information.
Another step is the creation of tokens for the appropriate identification. To do this, click on the "Tokens" section, then select "New token".
You will need the token you just created. The Nordigen API is a set of endpoints that allow us to integrate our product with account information. For a step-by-step integration guide, click on the "Quickstart" button in the menu bar. The guide explains in detail how to quickly get started integrating with the Account Information API.
After this step, you will be able to connect to the end users' bank accounts and access the raw account data and all transactions.
For verification before working with customer data, you will need to contact the sales team. Requests are processed within 1 business day, and if additional information is not required, the new user is activated, gaining access to all the capabilities of the system. If you still need more information, our support team will contact you.
All in all, that's all. If you want to try, you can go here. The last thing to add is that Nordigen is ISO 27001 certified, regulated by the GDPR and the Financial and Capital Market Commission in Latvia.
(c) Roland Mesters
Open Banking is not a new concept or technology. Open Banking or “open banking” is a system that allows banks to share customer data with third parties solely at the request of the users themselves. This is done using the API, special tools, thanks to which one program can interact with another. APIs are used in all online programs that transmit information or content. Without them, mobile apps and streaming services would not exist.
The concept of Open Banking began to be implemented several years ago, and nowadays it continues to improve. In Europe, Open Banking is regulated by the PSD2 directive. This directive obliges banking organizations to provide access to a number of data via the Open API. Read more about the technology, its advantages and implementation nuances - under the cut.
New opportunities for everyone
Open Banking provides new opportunities for all participants in the financial technology (fintech) market - from banks to users of services and services of banking and financial organizations.
Banks
Banking organizations that join the Open Banking initiative open APIs for a range of service providers, and in return gain access to the APIs of other companies, expanding their capabilities.
After the implementation of Open Banking, banks can cooperate with each other, providing clients with a service for viewing account data not only in the current bank, but also in partner banks.
In addition, banks that have joined this initiative can assess the financial "behavior" of customers not only on the basis of their own information, but also on the information that they received from partners.
In general, Open Banking is a path to technological progress of services and services, which allows active development in the modern world. The concept was conceived as a tool for interaction between banks - not in one country, but around the world, as well as a tool for integrating new technologies in the fintech industry. This idea was implemented, so now the project continues to actively develop.
Clients
A number of new tools are opened for users of banking services and services. The most revealing of these is the ability to use a single application to control all your accounts in different banks. Before that, different banking applications had to be used to execute a new transaction or view balances at different banks. Open Banking, on the other hand, allows you to perform all these operations in one interface.
In addition, such a global service is an excellent tool for controlling expenses and income, since it collects information from different banks, not just one. The program can analyze this information, structure and help make decisions on optimizing costs, obtaining more profitable loans, etc.
These tips include investments - the application "prompts" the user, based on information about the income received in the current month, how much he can invest.
These features can be implemented only if the user consents to the use of his data. And this just can be difficult - after all, not all bank customers agree to be "open".
Last but not least, as mentioned above, Open Banking is regulated by the PSD2 directive, which requires banks to comply with legal regulations regarding personal data. Only the client of the bank, and no one else, has the right to control their data. How well this requirement is being met is another matter. What does control of personal data mean? For example, a client of one bank has the right to transfer his entire financial and credit history to another bank, if necessary. In a normal situation, the bank does not give other financial and banking organizations access to this information, so if a person changes the bank, his financial history (not to be confused with credit) is to some extent reset to zero.
To summarize, members of the Open Banking ecosystem can offer more value-added services to customers than traditional organizations. At the same time, services are also personalized, which simplifies and improves the interaction of users, banks and financial institutions.
Connecting to the initiative - stages and nuances
To connect to the Open API, you can use services developed by different organizations. There are several of them, and one of them is Nordigen. We are the only organization that provides this service for free. About 2000 banks and software developers work with the company's platform.
Access to the Nordigen API is free, as is the ability to work with the API. Its advantages are versatility, intuitiveness and customizability. All this makes it possible to ensure the connection of user accounts to the application. Plus, Nordingen's data analytics tools enable bank developers to extract insights from banking materials to help them build their applications faster.
The integration stage does not take long. This usually takes one to two weeks, but in some cases this process can be shortened to 1 day. If a company needs analytical tools, Nordigen can also provide such a service.
Connection stages
To test our product, we suggest following this link by entering your email and setting a password. Then you need to click on the "Company" button, after which you can invite users from your company.
After that comes the testing stage. To test the success of the integration, it is best to connect, first, your own bank accounts. After the developer chooses “Connect New Bank”, he will need to select the country and the bank to which the connection is going. After that, you will be redirected to the authentication page, where you will need to enter the connection data.
All data on the bank is available only to the account owner. Other team members do not see this information.
Another step is the creation of tokens for the appropriate identification. To do this, click on the "Tokens" section, then select "New token".
You will need the token you just created. The Nordigen API is a set of endpoints that allow us to integrate our product with account information. For a step-by-step integration guide, click on the "Quickstart" button in the menu bar. The guide explains in detail how to quickly get started integrating with the Account Information API.
After this step, you will be able to connect to the end users' bank accounts and access the raw account data and all transactions.
For verification before working with customer data, you will need to contact the sales team. Requests are processed within 1 business day, and if additional information is not required, the new user is activated, gaining access to all the capabilities of the system. If you still need more information, our support team will contact you.
All in all, that's all. If you want to try, you can go here. The last thing to add is that Nordigen is ISO 27001 certified, regulated by the GDPR and the Financial and Capital Market Commission in Latvia.
(c) Roland Mesters
