Banqsoft Launches Open Banking Platform in the Cloud
Banqsoft launches a new Azure cloud platform to support Open Banking, PSD2 and DSOP
Open Banking has been one of the hottest technology trends in the banking industry for a while and a lot of financial services providers are truly embracing new business models and partnerships creating new financial products and services.
At the same time banks need to adapt to compliance requirements such as PSD2 and the Norwegian digital collaboration between the public and private sector called DSOP.
Open banking
The landscape for financial services is changing, industry boundaries are blurred in the digital world and one of the concepts that is starting to stand out as inevitable is open banking. This development emerges from a perfect storm of shifting customer behavior, regulatory changes, the threat from digital ecosystems such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and the quest for new business models are driving banks toward Open Banking.
New technology if shifting the center of gravity for traditional core banking systems. A modular approach, the internet of things, robotics etc. makes it possible to perform transactions machine-to-machine in real-time at a marginal cost basis. Traditional payments will become obsolete in many use cases as transactions become automated and integrated into other platforms and services. As paying for an Uber today is hidden for the end-customer, the self-driving car of tomorrow could perform payments to the charging station on its own behalf.
These trends all sum up to the inevitability of Open Banking or banking as a platform.
APIs are at the heart of open banking. If executed correctly, propose to increase innovation, foster collaboration, extend customer reach and lower costs compared to existing legacy systems. A key concept in the Open Banking paradigm is to use open source technologies to enable third-party developers to build financial applications on top of the banks’ existing infrastructure. This will most likely spark fears of becoming a commodity and giving away the customer interface for many bankers and may seem like the banks will be relegated to the back seat, while third-party technology companies are driving the car.
PSD2
The revised PSD2 Payment Services Directive called PSD2 regulates bank customers' access to the account and opens the possibility of using a third party to make payments directly from the account, as well as offering customer services that can collect and present information from the customer's bank account.
The purpose of the introduction of PSD2 is to open for more innovation and ensure greater competition in the payment market, thereby giving banking customers more freedom of choice, lower prices, and access to new and innovative services in the payment services market to a satisfactory level of security.
PSD2 is requiring banks to open the payment infrastructure to third-party providers. New business models based on a platform economy is threatening existing revenue streams. As an example, the P2P lending industry is seeing significant growth, especially in developed countries with strong financial markets.
Banqsoft’s implementation of PSD2 is based on the Berlin Group’s specifications and delivered in a hybrid cloud model with both a public and private part. The public part is delivered in Microsoft’s Azure Cloud to enable the API’s to be exposed and consumed on the internet.
DSOP
In Norway, the Tax Administration, Brønnøysundregistrene, NAV, the police and the finance industry collaborate to digitize important processes in society, called the DSOP program. The collaboration will create great value, save time and money for the players and contribute to further digitization in Norway. Bits represents the financial industry in this collaboration.
The program includes the three underlying projects as described below. Banqsoft’s open banking platform supports compliance requirements regarding “Control information” and “Bankruptcy proceedings”, while “Consent-based loan application” already is part of Banqsoft’s View21 Product Suite.
Consent-based loan application
The solution offered by the Norwegian Tax Authorities offers financial companies the possibility to retrieve detailed income- and tax information for the end customers. The income- and tax data are based on consent from the customer.
Control information
The aim of the project is to establish a complete digital solution for sending account information from the banks to the agencies regarding authority regulated control activities
Bankruptcy proceedings
The aim of the project is to establish a complete digital solution for the exchange of information between the tenant and the banks related to bankruptcy proceedings. The project will provide a solution for bankruptcies in companies, sole proprietorship and personal bankruptcies.