Electronic Payments Association NACHA has named the first five APIs, chosen from a list of 16, that it will be developing in its efforts to further advancements in payments and digital finance.
These APIs were chosen from a larger list that included several categories for potential development, including some that aimed to reduce fraud and risk, better data sharing, and payment access.
The chosen five APIs deal with payment interoperability, transaction status, account history, account validation, and bank contact information.
With these, NACHA is hoping for a good start to its plans for API standardization across payments and fintech, as George Throckmorton, managing director, network development and strategic initiatives for NACHA said in a statement.
Said Throckmorton:
To assess the payments pain points and opportunities of today, identify the possible APIs to address those pain points and opportunities, and then ultimately select the APIs to develop first, in such a short amount of time, is truly commendable. We are excited with the progress to date and look forward to continuing our work to bring API standardization to the U.S. financial services industry.
The next meeting of the API Standardization Industry Group is to be held next week on October 11th, where the group will discuss work on these five initial APIs.