BBVA API Market
Ana Climente, Head of Open Banking at BBVA Spain, was one of the participants in the Secure Payments & ID Congress‘ roundtable “Open banking: in the post-PSD2 era, the best is yet to come”, together with Andrés Valverde Alvarez, from the general secretariat of legislation for credit institutions and payment services, Oscar Martínez Patón, head of business development and companies at Banco Cooperativo Español, and Salvador Casquero, president and co-founder of 2gether, moderated by Javier Bartolomé, Product Innovation & Strategic Partnerships Director at Kineox and payment methods spokesperson at AEFI.
The roundtable focused on the implementation of PSD2, the future of open banking in Europe and, more specifically, how its arrival has impacted Spain, what steps the different entities had taken to adapt to its requirements, and what the current landscape is like as a result of this regulation. A priori, the analysis casts doubt on the differentiating momentum expected from PSD2. The number of payment institutions registered as such at the Bank of Spain has increased slightly over the past two years, but it is still a long way from the initial forecasts.
Ana Climente stated that this was the result of a first stage marked by immaturity. In Europe, there was no pre-PSD2 open banking regulation, so everything was new to all players. In addition, the implementation of PSD2 is not complete. It continues to develop into its latest definitions that give it an even more complete meaning.
Coupled with the heavy regulatory burden required to license as a payment service provider, this factor means that so far only fintech companies that have PSD2 services at their core have registered in Spain.
However, PSD2 is having a very positive effect on innovation in the financial sector, Climente noted. The number of TPPs licensed and registered at European level has increased by 66% year-on-year according to the EBA. And globally, progress is very remarkable. In 2018, there were 24 entities offering APIs, whereas they now exceed 50, with more than 150 services offered through these technological tools. And thanks to this, very interesting use cases of new players and neobanks, but also of established institutions, are coming to market.
Customers are the ones who gain the most from this situation. BBVA API_Market is a clear example of how a bank can open its infrastructure, products and services to third parties so that these new players can create an innovative, personalized, efficient and secure user experience for customers.
BBVA’s head of open banking also emphasized the importance of APIs as a means of collaboration with third parties in the current situation, in which the pandemic has caused customer demands to change, and a full adaptation to this new scenario is necessary. In conjunction with regulatory pressure, disruptive new businesses in the banking sector and new technologies, this has meant that businesses must transform themselves radically and urgently. BBVA is well aware that partnerships and collaborative ecosystems are key levers to accelerate the pace of change.
BBVA has always been very close to the fintech ecosystem since it considers this ecosystem an important driver of innovation in the financial sector. For this reason, it is committed to collaboration, agreements and investment with third parties as one of the keys to competing in the new environment. And BBVA API_Market is a facilitator to offer suitable solutions to customers where and when the need arises, responding to their vital needs, in the ecosystems in which they usually move and with services integrated into in third parties from beginning to end.
BBVA once again positions itself as the pioneer entity in creating collaborative spaces with the fintech ecosystem and offering solutions based on useful, practical and easy-to-implement technological tools, such as BBVA API_Market APIs.
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