3. What role do AISPs & APIs play in open banking?

Businesses can use a bank’s API to enter the financial market without the historically present burden of stringent compliance and infrastructure.

The new entrants can focus on providing one service while connecting to other service providers via APIs. This creates a new marketplace of specialists and a need for aggregators such as AISPs and PISPs.

To make sure everything runs smoothly and with customer security in mind, banks must integrate with PISPs and AISPs to meet SCA requirements and facilitate open banking with TPPs.

AISPs play a vital role in the PSD2 environment, giving consumers’ visibility of multiple bank accounts via a single app that is connected to each bank’s open API.

CAN ANYONE ACCESS A BANK’S API?

Not quite. Security is crucial here and API access is restricted to regulated TPPs who can securely access the bank’s data. All TPPs are subject to extensive verification of their security, operational governance and risk management controls before they can receive PSD2 authorisation.