Article by Efi Pylarinou
Is an Open API much like an 24/7 Open house? Maybe it is in some ways but it can also be gated. I actually like to think of Open APIs, as Private, Open for Distribution, Open for Business.
Pardon my thinking in progress as I watch and monitor the versioning, pivoting, and roles of APIs. It is actually in many ways, similar to the versioning we have been witnessing with Blockchains (private or not, immutable or not, etc).
Private APIs
Private APIs are by invitation only. Think of linking to a Bank’s functionalities such as basic account data, or payment initiation. Private APIs are being used by banks in B2B experiments, and less for running their businesses. Hackathons, accelerators, and bank sponsored developer portals, are such examples. A very recent example of such private API, is the dbAPI, Deutsche bank’s API which “opened” up on Nov.1. The first hackathon (open house but gated party) in Berlin was three-day competition with 750 applicants and 70 participants from 22 countries. More details on the winners which show the kind of Fintech ideas incubated, in Deutsche Bank opens its data store to external software developers. Another example also launched this month is the “opening up” of APIs from the Mastercard Labs, that will allow experiments with the private Mastercard blockchain. More details about that private party in Mastercard Wants Developers To Experiment With Blockchain.
I have to also refer to Capital One’s US Open banking platform, because it is on the programmable web and offers 3 open APIs, but is actually for developer experimentation (see DevExchange: An Open Banking Developer Platform).
From Asia I mention the recent Open Bank Project & JB Financial Group Launch Global FinTech Hackathon in South Korea, another hackathon via APIs from the Korean market. I will stop with these three examples and suggest checking out the Let’s build a list of Banking APIsconversation on the Fintech Genome, for more.
An example of a private API actually used in business is by BNY Mellon, the custodian of $30 trillion of assets! Private APIs are used in the daily reconciliation service they offer to their pension fund clients who invest in 200 different asset managers. This daily function has been transformed from one in which files were exchanged to one that is delivered through APIs.
For distribution
Open APIs for access to a bank’s distribution channels, is the second category. Banks have been distributing third party products in old-fashioned ways, through their own distribution channels for a long time. Traditional examples, range from offering funds of other institutions as investment options to clients, to payment services of cards or telco providers.
Xignite’s U.S. Mutual Funds and ETF Fundamental Data API is an example of such API, acting as a connector.
However, banks have been owning the customer and running their businesses like a fortress. They have been witnessing the growth of businesses like Paypal and Klarna (the alternative payment providers, the free-floating credit card alternatives) who are acting as distributors in the payment industry.
Within PSD2, the European regulatory enabler, banks can become third party providers themselves. They can tap into other banks and offer them initiation of payments or account aggregation. Such services would be especially valuable for mobile citizens and cross-border transactions. Open APIs for distribution of 3rd party products or for playing the role of a 3rd party provider, is an area of growth in which banks haven’t been proactive.
In Singapore, MAS is inviting banks to list their APIs on a regular basis and is also is developing itself APIs that will be used for regulatory reporting purposes to simplify the process.
For now, it is mostly Fintechs that are using the API technology and getting ready for the PSD2 or any other type of standard that gains market-wide traction (for America and Asia). OpenF2 is an initiative that aims to standardize the framework necessary for creating value via the API technology.
An example is the Australian Fintech, Simply Wall St. (visuals and infographics for fundamental stock analysis) who has built its API in a compliant way with Open F2.
For Business
Imagine a platform that facilitates others to engage in business. This a platform (as a business model) that allows peer-to-peer business transactions. This would be a true Banking Platform. An entity that does have a banking license but doesn’t have to create the financial products and doesn’t have to own the customer (i.e. access to the distribution channel) This true Banking platform facilitates third parties and their customers to do business (without using the bank’s balance sheet).
This is the kind of business that Fidor Bank or Solaris Bank, are building. This is the kind of business that Ipagoo is creating by offering a special international current account. This allows clients (individuals or businesses) to obtain a credit card from any European country of choice, a loan from any bank etc. See details of the comparison of Ipagoo vs. traditional banks.
Open APIs are the connectors of all these modular businesses. Kontomatik is a 3rd party provider in this space, that could enable for example, banks to improve credit scoring of prospect borrowers by accessing customer related data via other bank APIs. Kontomatik is part of the Kreditech group that is focused on serving the underbanked, by leveraging alternative data with machine learning (more in Kreditech and the next generation of Consumer Banking).
For now, banks are either not opening up such APIs (not being proactive ahead of PSD2) or offering low quality APIs (i.e. connectors that have bugs and are not well maintained). The adaptation of these connectors, APIs, especially in the “For business” role is nascent.
Source: Daily Fintech
Partners with ESG Book to Drive Investor Sustainability Engagement
SAN MATEO, Calif., April 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Xignite, Inc., the leading provider of market data APIs to brokers and wealth managers, announced the launch of a new Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data API in partnership with ESG Book, a global leader in ESG data and technology. Xignite's brokerage, wealth, and media customers can now increase user engagement and retention with state-of-the-art sustainability trading products.
As ESG investment has gone mainstream, today's digital investors, institutional investors, and corporations alike require ESG data to help them answer questions that range from a company's workforce diversity to its commitment to a net zero future. In this context, brokers and wealth managers can use ESG data to increase client engagement around their portfolios and differentiate their offerings in a very fragmented marketplace.
"We are thrilled to extend our highly scalable and advanced API platform to include ESG Book's real-time sustainability dataset. With the recent SEC announcement of proposals for climate disclosure, the momentum for sustainability data in the U.S. just keeps on building. If you do not offer ESG data and portfolio analytics to your clients today, you will run into growth and retention challenges," said Stéphane Duboi, the CEO of Xignite.
Dr Daniel Klier, CEO of ESG Book, said: "As capital markets transition towards a more sustainable, net-zero future, demand for accessible, comparable and transparent ESG data has never been higher. We are delighted to be partnering with Xignite, a global leader in API solutions, to deliver our real-time ESG data products to clients at both speed and scale through the latest cloud technology."
Xignite's new ESG API is designed to fast track the launch of ESG powered products. Transparent, well-structured and easy to understand ESG datasets eliminate the need for robust in-house ESG expertise. Advanced screener endpoints further simplify development by eliminating the need to maintain a database.
XigniteGlobalESG API covers a comprehensive universe of public companies domiciled in North America, EMEA, APAC, and Latin America. In addition to ESG scores, this API provides Global Compact scores, involvement data, temperature scores, and raw emissions data.
About Xignite
Xignite is the leading provider of market data API solutions to brokers, wealth managers, and the tech firms who serve them. Xignite has been disrupting the market data industry from Silicon Valley since 2003 when it introduced the first commercial REST API. Today, more than 700 firms use Xignite's APIs more than half a trillion times a month to deliver high-value data to digital investors. Visit xignite.com or follow us on Twitter @xignite.
About ESG Book
ESG Book is a global leader in sustainability data and technology. Through a cloud-based platform, ESG Book makes sustainability data more widely available and comparable for all stakeholders, enables companies to be custodians of their own data, provides framework-neutral ESG information in real-time, and promotes transparency. It counts many of the world's leading financial organisations among its clients, which collectively manage over $120 trillion in assets. www.esgbook.com
04/12/2022
Sales Up 50%. API Volumes Now Exceed Half a Trillion per Month.
Xignite, Inc., the leading provider of market data APIs to brokers and wealth managers, announced that 2021 was a banner year for its business. Xignite experienced more than 50% growth in new client bookings over 2020. Most of this growth was fueled by heavy demand from new brokerage and wealth management applications as more firms entered the business. Xignite also saw a 53% increase in API consumption to a whopping half a trillion requests a month - driven mainly by increased activity from digital investors as they consumed more and more data during the pandemic.
The Digital Investor Revolution was created by the convergence of zero-cost trading, fractional shares, working from home, the pandemic, and the emergence of a new and more powerful generation of retail investors. This has created significant momentum in trading and wealth management, primarily US-based equity and options trading. And it has fueled the entrance of a considerable number of new prominent players in the field, especially embedded finance providers. It all came to light in early 2021 with the Reddit and Gamestop phenomenon. But it has not proven to be short-lived. The transformation could be profound. Indeed Xignite saw its momentum accelerate in Q4-2021, with bookings growth exceeding 310% over the same quarter in 2020.
“Xignite is one of the oldest and most scalable commercial API infrastructures globally. It’s not a surprise that our clients have grown to rely on us for their mission-critical business needs,” says Stephane Dubois, Xignite’s CEO and Founder. “It’s not only the mind-numbing volumes that we have to deal with,” adds Dubois, “It’s also the 4-nine+ level of availability we deliver day in and day out coupled with the awesome market data quality and the high touch responsiveness of our support teams. These metrics matter to large embedded finance firms entering the business or legacy firms migrating to the cloud. They spend tens of millions of dollars entering the business. They don’t want to see it evaporate because of poor data quality or API availability.”
About Xignite
Xignite powers the investing apps and services that enable millions of people to manage their portfolios and trade stocks from a phone or tablet with the industry’s best financial market data APIs. We help more than 700 fintech trading, investment, and analytics firms like Robinhood, SoFi, and Betterment provide digital investors with the market data they need, such as real-time stock prices and company news. Visit xignite.com or follow on Twitter @xignite.
03/10/2022
Xignite, Inc., the leading provider of market data APIs to brokers and wealth managers, announced the launch of a new cryptocurrency data API. Xignite’s brokerage, wealth, and media customers can now increase the value and stickiness of their services to digital investors by taking advantage of the depth and breadth of data offered by this API.
Investment in cryptocurrencies has increased dramatically over the last few years and has proven to draw new investors into the world of trading. As a result, brokerage companies are trying hard to make buying, selling, and holding Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and other cryptocurrencies as easy as possible for their clients. The XigniteCrypto API is the first to bring together a vast universe of cryptocurrency information alongside the equity, ETF, and option data brokers and fund managers need to offer high-quality services to their clients. It also provides the depth of functionality required for them to engage customers and drive trading activity
“Cryptocurrencies tend to operate in their own world,” said Stephane Dubois, CEO, and Founder of Xignite. “This means that if you want to offer integrated equity, option, and crypto trading or analytics for your clients, you are going to have to cobble up a lot of heterogeneous data from many disparate sources, and that’s a pain,” adds Dubois. “With our new crypto API, you get the depth of coverage, the quality, and the reliability across all asset classes you need to grow your business - all in one integrated solution.”
Xignite’s new cryptocurrency API, XigniteCrypto, provides real-time and historical quotes for over 900 cryptocurrencies, including coins and tokens. It includes unique API endpoints that help firms engage digital investors, using the data and tools they need to make crypto trading decisions, including price alerts, historical charting, currency conversion, and cryptocurrency news.
About Xignite
Xignite is the leading provider of market data API solutions to brokers, wealth managers, and the tech firms who serve them. Xignite has been disrupting the market data industry from Silicon Valley since 2003, when it introduced the first commercial REST API. Since then, Xignite has continually taken advantage of new technologies to help its clients grow their business and serve their customers better by using financial market data effectively. Today, more than 700 firms use Xignite’s APIs more than half a trillion times a month to deliver high-value data to digital investors. Visit xignite.com or follow on Twitter @xignite.
02/15/2022
Xignite, Inc., a cloud-based market data distribution and management solutions provider for financial services and technology companies, announced a new Vendor of Record service for clients subscribing to real-time and delayed market data. The new service vastly simplifies the administration and reporting required by exchanges and often eliminates the need to pay redistribution fees, potentially saving clients thousands of dollars a month.
As an approved Vendor of Record, also called a Service Facilitator, Xignite can redistribute real-time and delayed equities and options pricing data from Nasdaq, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Options Price Reporting Authority (OPRA), OTC Markets (OTCM), and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).
Adhering to the complex compliance guidelines required by exchanges is extremely difficult for investment advisers, financial advisers, or order management software providers that need to display real-time or delayed data. Each exchange has its own unique set of regulations and compliance requirements, and clients need to prove that they have control over who receives the data, in what format, and for what use case. Xignite’s Vendor of Record service eliminates the administrative burden of tracking these complex compliance requirements.
The new service utilizes Xignite’s cloud-native Entitlements and Usage Microservices to give firms complete control and transparency of their data consumption and usage. Xignite provides data entitlements, usage tracking, and exchange reporting across various data sets, users, and applications to ensure exchange compliance. Xignite’s new service sometimes eliminates the need to pay expensive redistribution fees. Exchange fees for display data, regardless of the number of users, can cost upwards of $10,000 per month. These high fees are especially difficult for smaller financial firms with just a few real-time data users.
“Maneuvering through the maze of required compliance policies, entitlements, usage tracking, and reporting requirements, and being subjected to frequent audits is no easy feat,” said Vijay Choudhary, Head of Product for Xignite. “Xignite’s mission is to “Make Market Data Easy.” Today’s announcement is another step towards this. We are taking away the administrative burdens and complexity of licensing market data and allowing our clients the freedom to focus on their investment and trading strategies and building innovative products.”
Xignite’s Vendor of Record service is available for professional users with internal and display-only use cases. The service is available now as an add-on service for subscribers of our real-time and delayed equities and options pricing data APIs. These include:
About Xignite
Xignite has been disrupting the financial and market data industry from its Silicon Valley headquarters since 2003 when it introduced the first commercial REST API. Since then, Xignite has continually refined its technology to help Fintech and financial institutions get the most value from their data. Today, more than 700 clients access over 500 cloud-native APIs to build efficient and cost-effective enterprise data management solutions. Visit xignite.com or follow on Twitter @xignite.
09/21/2021
