EXCLUSIVE— Financial services technology provider FIS will use its new API portal to help banks and fintechs alike develop new capabilities, partnerships, and innovations, Rob Lee, chief product officer for FIS, told Bank Innovation.
“There’s a variety of services available [on the platform]—mobile banking, customer acquisition services, we tried to hit on a wide spectrum of services,” Lee said of the portal, dubbed FIS Code Connect, which was officially launched yesterday with over 300 APIs. “We anticipate weekly new services will be delivered so that library will continue to grow.”
While its official rollout was yesterday, FIS Code Connect has been in beta for about a year, Lee said, during which time FIS clients have been experimenting with the gateway.
As of now, there are a few dozen banks utilizing the platform including these legacy clients, Lee said, though he could not name the specific number.
Banks as well as fintechs, Lee noted, can use the platform to safely experiment with new applications before moving to production, which creates greater leeway for innovation, according to FIS.
FIS has already given platform access to the ten fintechs that participated in its last fintech accelerator class, Lee said.
The goal is to create a platform that will encourage these kinds of “what-if, creative applications” as finance moves towards an open banking ecosystem with FIS at the fore, Lee said.
Banks will be able to use the gateway to integrate services and applications from other, third-party fintechs. When asked if banks could develop their own APIs in tandem with these fintechs using Code Connect, Lee said, “they could point the fintech in that direction.”
“They could develop their own APIs on it; there a few non-FIS services on the gateway today,” Lee said, though he could not offer specifics on the services. This applies to FIS’ partnerships as well, such as its collaboration with the lending startup Numerated — the fintech’s real-time loan application and other capabilities will be in the gateway, Lee said.
Code Connect should also enable collaboration for international fintechs, as it is a global solution, according to Lee. The platform is “supporting PSD2,” Lee said, a United Kingdom regulation created to encourage an open banking ecosystem in the region.
“Certainly the services would differ regionally, but it’s the same platform we’re delivering globally,” Lee said.