The banking industry’s use of application programme interfaces (APIs) is rapidly accelerating. According to the ‘Banking APIs: state of the market’ report, jointly published by software developer Axway, API conference APIdays and open-source API store Open Bank Project (OBP) in November, “2015 is seeing a significant cultural shift within banks, and a greater readiness to utilise APIs and related technologies to [help] banks meet current challenges in transforming to a digital landscape”.
Arguably, banks have arrived late to the party – API technology is widespread across a range of other industries. “It is the accepted norm for secure data sharing and embedding functionality in an online environment,” says Maurice Cleaves, CEO of industry trade association Payments UK. Basically, it allows one software programme to ask another to perform a service, accessing specific data in the process.
