Xtensifi, a digital consulting and development firm that works with banks, credit unions, and fintech providers, has launched a new open banking consulting service for financial institutions and fintechs.
Open banking enables banks to share customer data with rapidly proliferating fintech firms and third-party financial apps in a more secure fashion. Before open banking, customers would just give their login info and account details to the app, and it would “screen scrape” to get the needed banking info – a less than ideal process in terms of security.
With open banking, third-party apps get info access through application programming interfaces (APIs), a means of connecting two software components and transferring data. APIs also allow the development of other apps, while streamlining the whole process in terms of documentation and admin. APIs are also, critically, a more secure method of data sharing than the previous ‘scraping’ method.
The end point of all this is to create a universe of useful financial applications that can use a consumer’s banking information to offer a wider raft of products and services. By teaming up with third-party partners, banks can offer more diverse and useful digital services to their customers, rather than viewing the issue as simple market encroachment.
With its new open banking services, Xtensifi will help facilitate legal, compliant connections between fintech firms and financial institutions. The firm has intellectual property and core competencies in back-end integration and API development, as well as deep experience helping fintechs market and integrate their products.
“We are empowering financial institutions with a more secure way to enable the sharing of permissioned customer data without increasing the risk of breaches,” said Doug Bacon, managing director at Xtensifi. “Consumers and small businesses now have greater control over their data and benefit from the trust in their bank or credit union to keep their financial information safer.”
Founded in 2009, Xtensifi has expertise in compliance, migration, and solution development on AWS Cloud, as well as experience implementing real-time payments systems and migrations from legacy platforms. The firm’s offerings include fintech strategy consulting, custom software development, architecture and technical training, and product and project management.
The company has offices in Tysons, Virginia and in Costa Rica.