BBVA makes eight APIs available to kickstart open banking program

BBVA API Market
OPEN FOR BUSINESS: BBVA is releasing eight APIs so companies can use them to build new services

Spanish bank BBVA has launched its open banking program by making eight of its APIs commercially available for the first time, meaning that third-party companies including startups and developers will be able to build new products and services by accessing and integrating customers’ banking data into their applications.

The launch of BBVA API Market comes after the bank spent more than a year working with developers and businesses to “optimise the way the Open API service would be delivered”. During this time, more than 1,500 businesses and developers registered with the experimental portal.

“In opening up with APIs like this, BBVA has become one of the first major banks in the world to deliver open banking — a move which is intended to lead to significantly increased products and services for customers and clients,” the bank says.

“In making commercially available eight APIs through the BBVA API Market, companies, startups and developers will be able to build new products and services by accessing and integrating customer’s banking data — with their permission — into their applications.

“From now on, companies can use the APIs available in Spain to create new value added services, deliver better user experiences by improving conversion and onboarding processes, manage payments, verify identities, forward notifications or analyse consumer habits and commercial behaviour among other things.”

“Initially, only Spanish customers of BBVA will be able to benefit from the market but BBVA intends to roll the program out to its US customers later this year, before expanding it further to include Turkey, Mexico, Latin America and beyond,” BBVA adds.

“Companies from anywhere in the world will be able to apply to use the individual customer data sets from Spain — provided, of course, the customer wants them to and gives permission. There will also be some anonymous aggregated data sets made commercially available, with the data broken down geographically or by sector.”

A video gives an overview of the BBVA API Market:

“By opening commercially our data and services, BBVA is turning open banking — a model that is going to speed up the transformation of the financial industry — into a reality,” says Derek White, global head of customer solutions at BBVA.

“Not only are we adapting to EU standard PSD2, which aims to boost competition in the industry, but are actually aiming to become the best platform on which to build new digital experiences. This is a customer-led business opportunity.”

“At BBVA, we believe the data belongs to our customers and we want to make it easier for them to share their information with those companies that offer them value and are capable of delivering the best services for them,” adds Raúl Lucas, head of open APIs in Spain. “The great thing about this business is that we can think up some basic uses and build a service around those.

“But when we make them available to third parties — the ones who really know their businesses — they come up with uses which would never even have occurred to us.”

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