January

By Garreth Dorree, Head Of Operations, Paysafe Group

As the battle to contain the global outbreak of COVID-19 continues, millions of people around the world stay at home to assist society’s effort to ‘flatten the curve’. One consequence of this is that consumers are increasingly choosing to shop online.

But even in times of global crisis, cybercriminals are on the lookout for ways to exploit unsuspecting targets. In fact, Action Fraud reported a 400% increase in COVID-19 related fraud in the UK between 1 February 2020 and 18 March 2020.

Most of these incidents include online shopping scams where people order protective masks, hand sanitizers, and other products that never arrive. However, scammers are increasingly preying on people’s fear and anxiety; the past few months have also seen an increase in phishing attacks, fake websites, and incidents of shipping fraud.

It’s too soon to tell how the pandemic will impact the world of business payment operations, but experts agree that the threat of increased fraudulent activity to businesses is likely to increase also.

 An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

 Small businesses have already been severely impacted by COVID-19, so the effect of further damage such as fraudsters making payments using stolen or fake credit cards is even more catastrophic. For those that are able to offer online shopping services, it’s never been more important to secure your checkout and protect your business and your customers from falling victim to cybercrime and online fraudsters.

Sticking to the healthcare theme, it’s clear that prevention is better than cure when it comes to cybersecurity. However, 70% of online small-to-medium-sized businesses currently struggle to find a balance between improving security measures and their other primary objective at the checkout; making the online customer journey as quick and easy as possible.

This is according to recent research by Paysafe. The research also found that security is the top priority when selecting a payment service provider. 81% of online merchants believe that it’s the responsibility of their payment service provider to protect them from fraud, and a further 59% cited security as a critical factor to consider when deciding which service providers to partner with, ahead of reliability (49%) and cost (47%).

Fraud also remains a serious issue for all businesses. Over a third (36%) saw credit cards as the most vulnerable method of payment.

 The benefits of migrating to 3DS2

One of the best ways to keep your business and customers safe is to migrate to 3DS2 immediately. 3DS2 is the long-awaited upgrade of 3D Secure Authentication, the EMV verification protocol for processing card payments online securely. The new and improved 3DS2 builds on this and now enables mobile support and biometric validation. Most importantly it streamlines and secures the checkout experience for the customer, resulting in less cart abandonment, a better conversion rate, and much more robust security for e-commerce businesses.

Avoiding a dramatic increase in card declines is a key reason for merchants to integrate a 3DS2 solution into their checkouts, but there are also additional benefits to merchants and consumers that should persuade businesses to implement 3DS2 as soon as possible.

For example, unlike the current 3DS authentication, 3DS2 is optimized across all eCommerce devices including mobile. This is critical as, according to our research, more Millennials (79%) and Gen Z (72%) consumers shop regularly via their smartphone than any other device including a laptop or desktop computer.

3DS2 also improves customer experience by giving consumers more choice over how they authenticate payments. In addition, passive sharing of more than 100 data points (10x the current volume) for each transaction enables issuers to perform a better risk analysis, which results in significant improvements in fraud prevention without compromising a consumer’s checkout experience.

In this time of crisis, two of the greatest hurdles to overcome for eCommerce businesses are satisfying consumer demand for greater flexibility in the way they pay, and offering a slicker, more seamless checkout experience while giving the customer peace of mind that the payment is secure.

As a result, merchants need a payment service provider that can be adaptable and mindful of the bigger picture of solutions as the market evolves. While the pandemic will pass, it offers lessons for dealing with other global events in the future. Now is the time to take steps to safeguard your business against fraud and future proof your checkout in order to remain competitive with industry leaders and retail giants. Integrating PSD2 into your checkout as soon as possible means your business and your customers have the best chance of being protected from being a victim of fraud during these uncertain times.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinion presented in this article is that of the authors and not necessarily expresses the views of IBS Intelligence)

By Gaurav Tiwari, FinTech Expert & Former Head Digital at Jio Payments Bank

During the Union Budget last year, India had introduced a Zero-MDR regime to boost digital transactions. According to the system, businesses (with turnover higher than INR 500 million) should provide customers with low-cost digital modes of payment and mandated banks to levy zero charges on the same. Most of the payment companies and banks are up in arms against Zero-MDR, fearing loss of revenue, and had been lobbying with the Government to defer it for some time.  With the outbreak of the COVID19 virus, the discussions around MDR have intensified further.

WHAT IS MDR?

First, let’s understand what MDR is and what is important for payment providers. MDR or Merchant Discount Rate is the money that is paid by a merchant to the payment ecosystem used in facilitating the transaction. All the parties involved in the value chain–acquirer, interchange, and issuer get their share from this MDR, including the third party technology or operations service providers used by these parties. MDR is typically a small percentage of transaction value, somewhere between 0.8 percent to 3 percent. Essentially what it means is that when you pay a merchant INR 100 using your credit card, the merchant gets only INR 97, while INR 3 gets divided between all others involved in facilitating this exchange.

WHAT IS THE DEBATE?

Why would a merchant agree to take a cut in his/her income to facilitate the transaction? After all, it is the merchant who drives the mode of transaction and not the other way around. How often have you refused to deal with a merchant because he did not accept your credit card? You find a way to pay that merchant agrees, and you continue with your purchase. Then what is the answer? In a credit card ecosystem, the card company facilitates the purchase by offering instant credit to the customer by taking a risk on the transaction. This risk taken by the issuer enables the purchase to go through, which may not have happened in case the credit was not issued at the time of the transaction. Now, here is something for the merchant to gain; he is winning a sale, which may not have happened otherwise. That is the reason the merchant doesn’t mind paying that MDR. Now issuer alone cannot support this massive ecosystem, and a part of it is distributed among other participants in the ecosystem.

If the MDR supported the technology and operational cost for running the ecosystem, it would have been a flat fee and not a percentage of the transaction amount because the cost of processing a transaction remains more or less the same irrespective of the transaction amount. So the primary reason a merchant agrees to pay MDR is that the issuer is taking a risk on the transaction by issuing an instant credit to facilitate the purchase. Larger the amount, more significant the risk for the issuer.

WHY ZERO-MDR IS NECESSARY?

Then came the debit cards for customers to access the funds parked in their savings and current accounts. Instead of reinventing the wheel, they decided to ride on the same infrastructure set-up for credit cards to facilitate debit card transactions as well. But then they got too lazy and even copied the same MDR based business model. In case of debit cards customer has already parked funds in banks and banks are making more money from that money and it is the responsibility of banks to facilitate access of funds in his/her bank account to its customer. Banks do not want customers to line up in the branches because that is the most expensive mode of transaction for banks, to save that cost banks have set up the digital infrastructure to provide easy access to customers, and this also includes POS/Payment Gateway infrastructure.

I am of the view that the MDR model is excellent for the credit card universe. However, it does not make any logical sense for debit card transactions, and issuer banks should bear the cost of these transactions instead of passing that cost to merchants or customers in any way. Issuer banks should pay interchange and acquirers on a fixed fee basis, and then acquirers should compensate their technology and operations partners from their share. Interchanges as the bodies at the center of all this should facilitate the working of a reasonable compensation mechanism for sustainable ecosystem growth.

The payments industry had been running on this illogical model for far too long, and everyone has accepted it as a norm. The zero MDR move by the Government should work as a catalyst to drive this change and implement a more logical and sustainable business model, not designed to unreasonably favor the banks. Banks should not be allowed to only benefit from this entire ecosystem, while other partners share the whole burden of cost. I hope NPCI, the umbrella body for all payment companies, leads the way with support from RBI and Finance Ministry to arrive at an agreeable solution that doesn’t ruin the payment facilitators and force them out of business. If that happens, the customer will be the biggest loser.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of  IBS Intelligence.) 

By Ramesh Narasimhan – CEO at Ingenico ePayments, India

Demonetisation was a watershed moment in the history of independent India. A decision geared to curb black money provided the platform and impetus to consumers to move to non-cash payment methods, and a slew of initiatives undertaken by the Government of India thereon has catalyzed the e-payment ecosystem in the country, expected to worth USD 135.2 billion by 2023, from USD 64.8 billion in 2019.

With India’s share in worldwide transaction value set to increase from 1.56% to 2.02% by 2023, the country’s e-payment sector is witnessing exciting trends, existing and evolving, which have the potential to catapult the nation as a dominant player in this segment.

Wearables as alternate payment channels

Internet of Things (IoT), which has the potential to bring a fundamental change in the way we interact with our surroundings has not only made objects smarter but has also enabled the seamless transfer of information between devices, organizations, and end-users.

Riding on the burgeoning growth of India’s wearable market, which registered a whopping 168.3% year-on-year growth in 2019, these inter-connected devices have evolved as alternate payment channels.

Last year, Mastercard announced its collaboration with token service provider Tappy Technologies to enable contactless payments through fashion wearables, starting with Timex Group’s analog watches.

Tappy Technologies in a similar collaboration with ExpressPay Card (a JV between China Union Pay and Bank of China) and Saga Watch offered cardholders a wearable payment option, acknowledged by merchants capable of accepting China UnionPay contactless payments.

Sound-based payment – the next big thing

Voice commands have revolutionized the home automation market and could soon sweep the digital payment space. The new frontier in this segment, the USP of sound-based payment system lies in its simplicity and convenience.

With nearly 668.3 million users projected to rely on soundwave technology by 2021, this mode of digital payment can radically change the dynamics of the digital payment sector.

Realizing the potential of soundwave technology, a few companies in the country are facilitating payments through soundwaves without the Internet. Encrypting data from one device to another using sound waves, all one needs to do is to program their device with the software developed by these companies, places the device within proximity of the POS terminal and the transaction is completed within seconds.

Near-field communication payments picking up pace

Also known as contactless payment and tap-and-go, near-field communication (NFC) payments truly came of age when the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched the National Payment Mobility Card last year, whereby users could make payments just by tapping the terminal, without the need to enter a PIN for transactions below Rs. 2,000.

Like QR codes, which are already quite popular among informal and small merchants, NFC-based payments give users complete control over transactions and the payment process. Following NPCI’s footsteps, many banks and financial institutions came up with NFC-enabled cards as one of their primary offerings.

The launch and success of applications like Google Pay make a strong case for NFC-enabled payment system, which I believe will gain significant traction in the coming days.

In conclusion

With technology taking center-stage of financial services, and the Government’s drive to a less-cash economy, the digital payment segment in India is expected to the breeding ground for innovation and newer opportunities in the coming days.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of  IBS Intelligence. Ingenico is a digital payments solution provider)

By Andreas Hauser,Senior Business Product Manager, Real-time Reporting and Innovation Cash Clearing, Cash Management, Deutsche Bank   

If a client were to ask its bank why a payment had not been fulfilled, is it really acceptable for the answer to be: “We don’t know”? Real-time liquidity benefits are ready to seize in the here and now. With the right application and a consistent consumption of real-time account information, banks can have a clear view on their current liquidity situation. 

Flashback to the year 2008 and the height of the financial crisis. A counterparty has just defaulted on a sizeable payment to a large global bank. The bank is highly sensitive to changes in its intraday liquidity positions, so immediate action is required. Unfortunately, the bank lacks visibility over its intra-day payment flows and is therefore unable to respond to this situation quickly and decisively. Without the necessary liquidity the bank finds it hard to mitigate the negative impact on its own time-sensitive payment obligations and the situation begins to snowball – spreading from one bank to another before the end of the business day.

The potential for such scenarios was an obvious red flag for regulators. Something had to change and as a result, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) proposed guidelines in 2008 and 2013, known as BCBS 144 and BCBS 248 respectively, recommending principles for banks to track their liquidity flows over the course of the business day. Returning to the present day, we find the regulatory emphasis on real-time visibility has even increased, with the incorporation of BCBS 248 into the Basel Framework. However, the mandate of real-time cash-balance monitoring and reporting has yet to materialise across the market.

It’s an issue that has receded from the limelight in recent years, but, in this day and age, if a client were to ask its bank why a payment had not been fulfilled, is it really acceptable for the answer to be: “We don’t know”? Banks should have a clear view over their intra-day cash positions – be it on their RTGS accounts or on accounts held with Nostro Agents. It’s the starting point not only in guarding against stress scenarios, but also to manage and optimise their payment flows. Put simply, banks that don’t capitalise on this opportunity are missing out on potentially huge efficiencies and controls.

Maximising efficiency and control

From medium-sized to more specialist players, there are a number of banks with significant cash positions in the main currencies. In any given 24-hour period these positions are likely to vary significantly. Though there is no one optimum pattern – as this depends on the bank’s business models, products and locations – the benefits of implementing the guidelines published by the Liquidity Implementation Task Force (LITF), in response to the former BCBS 248-paper, are clear.

These have been demonstrated in a recent Deutsche Bank study, which compared the daily real-time cash balances from start of day until end of day for four banks across a three-month period.  Figure 1 shows a bank that has not implemented a real-time cash-balance reporting strategy, while Figure 2 shows a bank that has.

Figure 1: Non-user of real-time reporting services

 

Figure 2: User of real-time reporting

At the bottom of Figure 1, the outlined box shows the points at which the account is under-funded. To avoid being short on the account and having time-sensitive payments queuing-up as a result, a liquidity deficit such as this might force the bank to rely on intra-day credit lines, incoming flows or liquidity transfers. In contrast, the box at the top of Figure 1 outlines where the account is being over-funded – meaning that the bank is holding onto surplus cash that could be better leveraged elsewhere. These inefficiencies, resulting from either over- or under-funding, can last for the majority of some business days.

Comparatively, the bank that has implemented real-time cash-balance reporting into its liquidity management strategy, as depicted in Figure 2, suffers shorter and less frequent instances of over- or under-funding and has a clearly defined daily pattern, reflecting a considered strategy.

Seize the opportunities

So why do these benefits remain off the radar for many participants in the correspondent banking network? For a considerable number of banks, industry-wide projects, such as the migration to the ISO 20022 payment messaging standard, are being addressed with a greater sense of urgency. In addition, the development of complementary technologies, including Application Programming Interface (APIs), Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, are rising up the strategic agenda.

But history teaches us that the “next big thing” will always loom on the horizon, while real-time liquidity benefits are ready to seize in the here and now. With the right application and a consistent consumption of real-time account information, banks can have a clear view on their current liquidity situation. What’s more, in combination with SWIFT gpi, banks can enjoy improved visibility across all parties involved in cross-border payments, including the status of the payment at each embedded agent. These are upgrades that can be implemented today and pay for themselves long before the ISO 20022 migration has completed.

By PSE Consulting

In a global first, all the major UK acquirers have come together to show collective support for businesses impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and share their views on what businesses can do during the lockdown while protecting employees and maintaining social distancing. These top tips come from all the major UK acquirers/ISOs and are designed to help business who may not accept cards or operate online understand their options to adjust how they accept payments.

UK acquirers recognise their smaller business customers are facing an unprecedented set of challenges. “Whether you’re a business that has relied on face-to-face shops and you want help setting up a website, or you’re looking for advice on how to keep your business and its customers safe from fraudsters, we are here and ready to help,” Rob Cameron, CEO of Barclaycard Payments, who process almost 40 per cent of UK transactions, comments.

The following best practice list is based on suggestions from senior executives from across the UK’s leading card acquirers. They are designed to help those who cannot open their doors as well as those who can still provide takeaways and deliveries.

“It’s important that we work together to identify new ways in which customers can continue to trade,” Pete Bettles, UK & Ireland Chief Operating Officer of Global Payments, says. “We recognise that, for our customers, maintaining trade is critical both for cashflow and retaining consumers’ loyalty.”

1. Pay Online
Getting online, or extending your current website to take payments, has the advantage of tapping into a fast-growing area of the market both within the UK and abroad. If you have a website but don’t yet sell via this channel, many card acquirers such as Stripe or PayPal can get you taking payments within an hour. If you are not yet online there are services such as Shopify or WIX within which you can build your site and take payments.

Lola’s Cupcakes, a premium bakery with multiple outlets in South-East England, has completely repurposed its business during the lockdown. The company has worked with its payments provider Elavon to develop a new online buying process and transformed itself into preparing fresh grocery boxes for delivery within a 48-hour window.

Similarly, in the restaurant sector, Paymentsense has just launched a service called BiteBack. This allows restaurants to put takeaway menus online and reuse existing in-store acquiring contracts. “With BiteBack we want to help businesses operate as a takeaway almost instantly and keep them trading as a result,” Guy Moreve from Paymentsense says.

2. Pay via email
Emails can also be a useful way to take payments. Many card acquirers have products which allow you to embed a payment link into an email that presents a simple payment page with a value set by you. Emails can be generated after a customer has called, or after a visit to your website. The email should contain details of the order to allay any potential concerns about email phishing scams. This method also benefits from secure processing which can ensure the costs of any fraud are taken by the customer’s card issuer rather than you.

“Through our ‘Pay By Link’ product we allow merchants to offer a simple and effective facility for consumers to pay remotely without the need to build a website,” Pete Wickes, SVP Corporate at Worldpay by FIS, says.

3. Pay over the phone
If you already have a payment device, one quick and easy solution is to take orders and payment over the telephone. This approach is particularly relevant for businesses whose customers may not be online or who have concerns about using cards online.

“Most counter-top devices can be used to enter card details provided over the phone,” Simon Stanford, SVP Small Business at Worldpay by FIS, says.

Worldpay has been working with Aroma Coffee & Kitchen in Glasgow to turn their sit-in café into a delivery service. “The card terminal was activated remotely without us having to do anything. The next day we were up and running with telephone payments,” Heather Gilchrist, the owner of Aroma, says.

This approach does have its downsides. Taking orders over the phone can be time-consuming, there are additional fraud risks, and card details must always be typed directly into the terminal, never recorded anywhere else. However, acquirers can help mitigate these risks.

4. Use social commerce
Companies who have built up a following on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or other social media should consider allowing these customers to buy via these channels. Global Payments is launching an app that enables small businesses to take payments online through their social networks but without the need to set up a separate website.

“Our social commerce solution is a hugely relevant and easy way for businesses to leverage the reach and engagement of social networks in an engaging manner,” Nick Corrigan, UK&I Managing Director & President at Global Payments, says.

5. Contactless for takeaway
If customers are still able to come into your shop to take away food or essential products, you should use your existing countertop contactless payment device. This helps you to protect those working in stores and maintain social distancing in line with guidance.

From 1 April 2020, the contactless limit of £30 was raised to £45 and as Guy Moreve from Paymentsense points out, “our data show the average purchase in segments such as hardware, pet or garden stores now falls within the contactless limits”. Encouraging your customers to use their Google Pay or Apple Pay also has the advantage of allowing them to make contactless purchases of any value rather than being constrained by bank card limits.

6. Payment on delivery
These principles can also be extended to home deliveries. In this case, a mobile terminal, or one linked to your mobile phone (called an mPOS) allows consumers to pay via cards on their doorstep. This can provide an alternative to cash where customers may have concerns about COVID-19 infections, or they have not been to an ATM recently. iZettle and Square are popular mPOS choices and Elavon is supplying mPOS terminals to help companies take payment upon delivery in the UK.

“We are helping businesses find new ways to provide food, pharmaceuticals and other essential supplies to people at home and those who are isolated or vulnerable,” Hannah Fitzsimons, President and Managing Director at Elavon Merchant Services, Europe, says.

7. Mobile commerce
Many people in the UK are already familiar with using their phones to order their food or other essential products and services. While platforms such as UberEats or Deliveroo generate attractive volumes of customers, they can be relatively expensive. You should therefore ensure your website is easy to read on a mobile or you may want to consider creating your own app.

“Mobile commerce is the fastest-growing channel for retail and generates over 30 per cent of revenues for some of our clients. The phone is becoming the most important customer engagement device because it is always to hand, even during a lockdown,” Chris Jones, Managing Director of PSE Consulting, who provide expert payments advice to both acquirers and merchants, says.

All of these measures offer a safer way to keep you trading and the economy moving. “Public health and safety during the pandemic remains the top priority,” Dr Jonathan O’Keeffe, Chief Medical Officer at London Health Systems, an international occupational and corporate health consultancy, says.

He adds: “The economy plays a major role in sustaining our health in the long term. Commercial enterprise and trade allow us to fund our health service and social care systems. Payment solutions that both support and respect the need for ongoing social distancing measures and facilitate cash flow to business are needed to enable us to resume productive, healthy lives.”

By PSE Consulting

By Krzysztof Pulkiewicz
CEO and Co-Founder of banqUP, a Polish-Belgian API aggregator connected to 78 banks in 10 European countries.

On 14 September 2019, PSD2 went into full effect all over Europe. It made possible for a third party to connect to banking APIs to obtain the history of clients’ accounts, make a payment or check the availability of funds. In theory, it would cause a new generation of banking apps that will bring new quality to banking clients. However, the development of new solutions is not as fast as many would like to.

The UK, with its Open Banking Directive that came into force in January 2018, is far more evolved than the rest of Europe. Therefore many Open Banking solutions (like Revolut’s account aggregation) are only available in the UK.

Even the most innovative banking players, like KBC or ING, are locally connected with 4-5 different banking partners at most.

Why is it hard to get into Open Banking as a new player? banqUP – a platform that aims to create ‘one API to connect all banking APIs’, similarly to what Plaid is doing for the US Market, and already connected to over 50 banks from 8 countries in their aggregator platform, has some interesting views on this subject.

Lukasz Chmielewski, banqUP’s CTO, says that the APIs provided by banks are pretty different across different API standards, but not only – “each bank has a different approach to how it complies with PSD2 directive. There are a number of pain-points that we observed across very different national and multinational API standards and their implementations in Europe”.

Too little sand in the sandboxes
Very often sandbox/test APIs provided by banks significantly differ from the final API.

“We have encountered sandboxes that, by design, offer around 10 per cent of the functionalities of the production API. When asked – the bank’s response was ‘it’s to make it easier for third-party providers (TPPs)’. Not sure in which way,” Chmielewski says.

Why is this a problem? Sandbox should be a tool for a TPP company to test their solution to later seamlessly connect to access real data. It should also allow any entity without a TPP license to build its solution.

“Before we got our TPP license in December we basically had no idea how accurate our connector is. Only after deployment to our TPP client, we have learnt about the scale of differences. And most third-party service providers are still in this inconvenient situation,” the banqUP’s CTO notes.

Sandbox stability may also be an issue. It seems logical that the sandbox environment may be less stable than the production one, but the banks are obliged to inform their partners about any changes to a production API that may cause failure to connected applications (usually a few months prior to their release) but not to the sandbox. However, some basic level of reliability is required to make sandbox useful.

Piotr Szyperski, banqUP’s Lead Developer, explains: “When it comes to sandbox change reports, we have had cases where the changes have been communicated to us 20 minutes before their release to the sandbox Automatic tests depending on sandbox APIs almost never work for a full set of banks. We had to design the process to automatically disable/enable sandbox tests based on health checks, as instabilities occur very often.”

Non-standard standards
Another issue TPPs face is the differences within a single API standard. Mostly stemming from different approaches to the guidelines. There are banks that only support most basic scenarios, ignoring the fact that according to their API standard they should support much more. For example, some of them allow only standard payment and neither recurring payment nor scheduled ones are supported. These seem minor issues but often whole business cases can be (or are being) built around those missing features.

“Some banks follow standard to the letter, some decide to add additional functionalities or features. Others decide to ignore some elements of the standard, claiming that they are not useful,” Szyperski says.

“Standards are usually treated by banks as guidelines or inspiration only. Even if they are strictly followed, they still leave a lot of room for interpretation. Multiple optional fields, a lot of alternative paths and missing elements that most REST APIs possess – all these make the banking APIs far from perfect,” he adds.

“However, there are standards with more precise requirements. One good example is the Polish API. It is precise enough to result in very similar implementations of both AIS and PIS services across the whole country.”

Growing pains
Chmielewski says: “From our perspective it seems that both people responsible for PSD2 standards and those implementing them have been focused either on maximizing the security of the API or minimizing the effort of implementation, having internal banking architecture in mind.”

“Moreover, it seems that in some cases, after the bank has addressed the minimum regulatory requirements regarding PSD2, they invest much less of their resources and focus on improving the quality of API, especially sandbox. It may be somehow understandable, but still may slow down changes related to Open Banking.”

On the bright side, most banks approach support very seriously. They have appointed contact persons to handle API reports or even set up small departments. There are only rare cases where the answers are not helpful or take longer than one day on average.

“Many of the issues we have described stem from the fact that we are often one of the first entities that connect to a given banking API. We are observing a steady increase in stability and usability of the APIs, even though it is not necessarily rapid,” Chmielewski says.

“Reactions from banks to our feedback are also usually very constructive and positive. We believe Open Banking, with a proper set of tools simplifying connectivity, might soon become a game-changer it was hoped to be,” the banqUP’s CTO concludes.