If you’ve ever dreamed of having an API for your banking data, it might be on the horizon. As big data has taken the world by storm light-years faster than governments have been able to respond, slowly but surely there’s been a growing sentiment for open-source technology and more data privacy (looking at you, GDPR). In the banking sector, that’s taken the form of open banking.
Open banking is a bank that provides users with an application programming interface (API), options for financial privacy and transparency, and open-source technology to make it all happen. And...it’s happening, folks. The European Parliament passed some laws that encourage innovation in mobile banking apps, and the UK gave the "okay" to let licensed startups access banking data, encouraging open banking.
With all that data out there now, banking is one area with a growing movement for more data control. With APIs, third-party developers could create applications in response to consumer demand, filling a market niche where commercial banks currently aren’t...because, let’s face it, friendly user interfaces aren’t any bank’s best feature. Plus, sometimes you just want to search your bank data as if it was on an excel spreadsheet, and yet on most banking platforms, ability to search is mind-numbingly limited.