Application Programming Interface (API)

API as an application integration tool

The API defines the functionality that the program (module, library) provides, while the API allows you to abstract from how exactly this functionality is implemented.

If a program (module, library) is considered as a black box, then the API is a set of "pens" that are available to the user of this box, which he can twist and pull.

Software components communicate with each other through an API. At the same time, components usually form a hierarchy - high-level components use APIs of low-level components, and those, in turn, use APIs of even lower-level components.

According to this principle, data transfer protocols over the Internet are built. The standard Internet protocol (OSI network model) contains 7 layers (from the physical layer of packet bit transmission to the layer of application protocols similar to HTTP and IMAP protocols). Each layer uses the functionality of the previous layer of data transmission and, in turn, provides the required functionality to the next level.

It is important to note that the concept of protocol is close in meaning to the concept of API. Both are abstractions of functionality, only in the first case we are talking about data transfer, and in the second - about building computer applications.

The function and class library API includes a description of the signatures and semantics of the functions.

Application Programming Interface (API):

• Access Enterprise Business Services
• Exchange information between systems and applications
• Simplify interaction between companies, partners, developers, and customers

Open API strategy

The API strategy includes:

• Develop business products based on existing APIs
• Provision of internal services to developers
• API Monetization Models for Multichannel Interoperability and Profit Improvement

The implementation of the Open API concept helps transform the business, embed it into a flexible project ecosystem of market players, create conditions for the constant generation of new ideas and the formation of additional value when managing enterprise data arrays.

The integration solutions market is developing in the context of API evolution - from EDI and SOAP to Web 2.0, which began the era of public APIs. The number of such interfaces in the next 3 years may grow by more than 50 times and reach 1 million. This is due to multi-channel: the channels of interaction with customers must change with them. The continuous growth in the number of consumers and the volume of data has led to the emergence of the API economy, which helps to create innovative business models for the use of corporate assets and services based on open interfaces.

Function signature

A function signature is part of a general function declaration that allows translators to identify a function among others. Different programming languages ​ ​ have different ideas about the signature of the function, which is also closely related to the capabilities of overloading the function in these languages.

Sometimes the call signature and the function implementation signature are distinguished. The call signature is usually composed according to the syntax of the function call, taking into account the scope signature of the given function, the function name, the sequence of actual argument types in the call and the result type. The implementation signature usually involves some elements from the syntactic construction of the function declaration: the scope specifier of the function, its name and a sequence of formal argument types.

For example, in the C++ programming language, a simple function is uniquely recognized by the compiler by its name and sequence of types of its arguments, which makes up the signature of the function in this language. If the function is a method of some class, then the class name will also participate in the signature.

In the Java programming language, the signature of the method is its name and a sequence of parameter types; The value type is not involved in the signature.

Function semantics

Function semantics is a description of what a given function does. The semantics of a function includes a description of what is the result of the function's calculation, how and on what this result depends. Usually the result of execution depends only on the values ​ ​ of the arguments of the function, but in some modules there is a concept of state. Then the result of the function can depend on this state, and, moreover, the result can be a state change. The logic of these dependencies and changes refers to the semantics of the function. The complete description of the semantics of functions is the executable code of the function or the mathematical definition of the function.

Main API Types

Internal APIs

• Access to the API is provided only to internal developers
• The applications are aimed at employees of the enterprise

Business Drivers:

• Consistency of development
• Lower costs
• Improve Development Efficiency

Partner APIs

• APIs are only available to a limited set of business partners
• Applications designed for end users and business users

Business Drivers:

• Automate the development process
• Partnership development
• Optimizing Your Partner Experience

Public APIs

Access is granted to any external developer Applications target end users

Business Drivers:

• Development of new services
• Ecosystem development
• Multichannel interaction

Cloud Storage API

Application programming interfaces (APIs) for connecting cloud storage with applications are of various types.. A huge amount of web content is built on combining data from various online sources. Once upon a time, this combination was called "mashups" or "Internet 2.0," but today web applications have become part of the modern world of IT. The following are storage management APIs that developers can use to provide storage services^[1] applications^[2]

There is potentially some ambiguity about what is meant by the storage API. This is due to the fact that in the most general sense, the API is just code that allows one part of the software to connect to another. For example, if we are talking about "storage APIs," then this may mean APIs provided by the storage array manufacturer to monitor and manage their products for the software that developers write. We can also mention the localStorage development web interface, which allows browser applications to save data locally, and which is considered unsafe. But instead, it is better to consider APIs that provide third-party storage or storage services (databases, lakes, and data stores) to which developers can connect through APIs embedded in application code.

The storage API can be divided into several categories, including:

• APIs that connect to cloud-based file synchronization services and cloud disks, as well as productivity apps such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 via the Graph API;
• API for connecting web applications to cloud provider storage services;
• APIs that allow the use of storage-related services such as databases, lakes, and data stores.

When APIs are used to store data

When connecting through the API to services such as cloud drives, productivity applications, etc., you mean the ability to create, read, update and delete (CRUD) data, usually using HTTP methods such as Get, Post, Put, etc. These are the scenarios that are most suitable for SMB. At the initial level, you can connect to services such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 to access files, e-tables, e-mail, documents, calendars, analytics.

In addition, through the API, you can connect to the cloud storage of providers - usually object-based - to use and manage data according to a business scenario. The enterprise segment also has a wide range of data services available through the API. These include databases (SQL and NoSQL), as well as higher-level services often based on them, such as lakes and data stores.

Who provides the storage API and how much it costs

Box and Dropbox offer APIs that allow many CRUD operations to be performed on data stored on their systems, based on HTTP, which developers can implement into their applications. They allow you to use various ways to manage files and metadata, as well as organize files. With certain bandwidth restrictions, they are free to access and develop using the API.

Microsoft Graph is a developer API platform that allows access to a wide range of Microsoft products. The company offers developers a free 365 account. After that, the cost depends on the number of Graph objects that are accessed. At the moment, it is $0.375 per 1000 objects.

Google Workspace (formerly G-Suite) offers API access to a wide range of productivity applications and beyond. This includes access to e-mail, calendars, and e-tables as an elementary database form. There is a free trial subscription, but it lasts only 14 days.

Storage access to major cloud providers - AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud - is essentially API-based, with Rest and HTTP commands used. Object repositories of hyperscalers such as Amazon S3 and Azure Blob are accessed using familiar API methods for CRUD operations.

Often, they are accessed by applications running in the cloud, but this is not necessary, since APIs provide storage access to applications running in other places.

Databases such as AWS RDS (SQL) and DynamoDB (NoSQL) are also accessed through the API. The same can be said about Azure SQL Database and Cosmos DB, as well as NoSQL Cloud SQL and Datastore, which Google offers. In addition, you can use the MongoDB, Scylla and PostgreSQL databases in the big three hyperscaler clouds. All cloud providers have a free tier, but it's for smaller companies and developers.

Fauna, DataStax, Couchbase and MongoDB Atlas offer something similar to cloud point database solutions, sometimes stylized as DBaaS (and usually NoSQL). In addition, the big three offer more complex solutions available through the API - lakes and storage. These include Azure Data Lake, Amazon Redshift and Google BigQuery.

Operating systems APIs

• Windows API
• POSIX
• Linux Kernel API
• OS/2 API
• Amiga ROM Kernel

Almost all operating systems (Unix, Windows, MacOS, etc.) have an API with which programmers can create applications for this operating system. The main API of operating systems is many system calls.

In the software industry, common standard APIs for standard functionality have an important role, as they ensure that all programs using a common API will work equally well, or at least in a typical familiar way. In the case of graphical APIs, this means that programs will have a similar user interface, which facilitates the process of mastering new software products.

On the other hand, differences in the APIs of various operating systems make it much more difficult to transfer applications between platforms. There are various methods for bypassing this complexity - writing "intermediate" APIs (API graphical interfaces Qt, Gtk, etc.), writing libraries that map system calls of one OS to system calls of another OS (runtime environments such as Wine, cygwin, etc.), introduction of coding standards in programming languages (for example, the standard C library [[C of C), writing interpreted languages ​ ​ implemented on different platforms (sh, [[perl|of C), writing interpreted languages ​ ​ implemented on different platforms (sh, perl, php, tcl, Java, etc.)

It should also be noted that the programmer often has several different APIs at his disposal to achieve the same result. Moreover, each API is usually implemented using API software components of a lower level of abstraction.

For example: in order to see the line "Hello, world!" In the browser, you just need to create an HTML document with a minimum title, and the simplest body containing this line. What happens when the browser opens this document? The browser program will pass the file name (or already open file descriptor) to the library, processing HTML documents, which, in turn, will read this file using the operating system API, and will understand its device, call through the API libraries of standard graphic primitives operations such as "clear the window," "write with the selected font Hello, world!," During these operations, the library of graphic primitives will access the library of the window interface with appropriate requests, already this library will turn to the API of the operating system with requests like "and put this in my video card buffer."

At the same time, at almost each of the levels, there are actually several possible alternative APIs. For example: we could write the source document not in HTML, but in LaTeX, we could use any browser for display. Different browsers, generally speaking, use different HTML libraries, and, moreover, all this can be (generally speaking) assembled using different primitive libraries and on different operating systems.

The main difficulties of the existing tiered API systems are thus:

• The difficulty of porting program code from one API system to another (for example, when changing the OS);
• Loss of functionality when moving from a lower level to a higher level. Roughly speaking, each API "layer" is created to facilitate the execution of some standard set of operations. But this makes it really difficult, or it becomes fundamentally impossible to perform some other operations that the lower API level provides.

Graphics APIs

• GDI
• GDI+
• Direct3D (part) DirectX
• DirectDraw (part of DirectX)
• OpenGL
• OpenVG
• X11
• Qt
• GTK
• Motiff
• Tk
• Zune
• SDL

Audio APIs

• DirectSound (part of DirectX)
• DirectMusic (part of DirectX)
• OpenAL

Authentication Systems API

• BioAPI
• PAM

Principle and use of the Economy API

APIs are the link that makes cloud computing a reality. APIs are the base layer for digital transformation. And APIs have saved billions of dollars in integration and human resources costs. It is the API that determines how the software interacts and how data is exchanged. In many ways, APIs drive the world of technology.

But APIs also pose problems. First, there is a spontaneous reproduction of APIs, since each company creates them simply in order to look fashionable (API for self-promotion?). Further, there is a quality problem. Not every company supports its APIs well. Naturally, there are decent vendors looking to help you manage all these APIs (take a look at the Gartner magic quadrant).

What should be guided in practice? In several research notes, Gartner gives the following hints^[3]

• Work on the API must be of measurable value. Do not waste resources creating an API that no developer will use.
• Create an API only if it has a specific user. There needs to be a partner or ecosystem that needs one.
• The average enterprise always uses more APIs than it creates on its own. Its divisions will deal with many APIs, and the CIO task lies with managing this.
• APIs are critical for the Internet of Things, the capabilities of ordinary users, analytics and information systems. If, when creating an API, you forget about these things, think carefully.

APIs allow organizations to create personalized user interaction

Customer expectations and behavior are^[4][5]

Buyers:

• Require an individualized approach - on their terms
• Waiting for Comprehensive Integrated Service
• Go to anyone who better meets their demands

Organizations:

• Communicate with customers through interactional websites, mobile applications, and other friendly digital interfaces
• Waiting for a comprehensive integrated service
• Will go to anyone who better meets their requirements

API everywhere!

• Experts estimate that more than 1 million public IBM APIs will be available to users by the end of ^[6] decade. ^[7]
• According to statistics, more than 9 million developers are involved in the creation of internal APIs. Today, the focus is shifting toward the development of public Murphy APIs^[8]
• The Internet of Things (IoT) will reach 20 billion connected devices by 2020^[9]
• Google in 2016 paid $625 million for the purchase of API management platform supplier Apigee.
• According to Amelin Vladimir, head of the Aplana consulting center, in 2016 the number of published Public APIs worldwide reached 16 thousand, and by 2020 there will be more than 1 million. In Russia, they are provided by Yandex, Mail.ru, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, in the financial sector - Sberbank, Otkritie FC, Tinkoff Bank, VTB, as well as large retail chains, public services and an open government. According to the survey, 26% of domestic banks have developed or are developing their own APIs, another 38% plan to do so next year. According to Gartner, 75% of banks on the Top 50 global list already have their own open APIs, and by 2018, regulators in half of the G20 countries will adopt standards governing their application. A variety of Public APIs are Open APIs based on open standards and available to a wide range of developers, usually free of charge. According to Vladimir Amelin, the growth of their popularity is due to the fact that more and more companies see in them the potential for deploying new business models and understand how to monetize such models.

Global API Market

Chronology of events

2023: Russian telecom operators earned 5.8 billion rubles for API (+ 26 %)

At the end of 2023, the volume of the Russian software interfaces (API) market in the field of telecommunications reached 5.8 billion rubles. This is a quarter - 26% - more compared to 2022, when the costs in this segment were estimated at 4.6 billion rubles. Such data are reflected in the review of TMT Consulting, published on October 10, 2024.

The study examines the various services provided by the API. These are numbering management, Callback, CallTracking, intelligent call routing, incoming call processing, call recording and analytics, number masking, cloud solutions for contact centers. It is noted that the Telecom API industry in Russia is actively developing, which is facilitated by several factors. These include:

• The desire of companies to omnichannel and personalize communication with customers;
• Expansion of the Russian software market as a whole against the background of the departure or restriction of the presence of foreign players;
• Automation and robotization of communication channels;
• Anti-spam, personal data protection;
• Introduction of analytical tools and speech technologies based on artificial intelligence;
• Increasing the number of integrations with business systems;
• Cloud Communication Platform (CPaaS) Market Development.

In the structure of revenue for services in 2023, number masking services were in the lead with a share of about 26% in the total market volume. This is followed by the interactive voice menu (IVR) and the processing of incoming calls with 23%, as well as intelligent call routing, which provided 15% of the income. Cloud solutions for contact centers accounted for 13%, numbering management - 6%. Another 8% provided CallBack services, 6% - recording and analytics of conversations, 3% - Calltracking.

Thus, the main volume of revenue is formed by four services, which account for 77% of revenues. The key factors in demand for number concealment services are the demand for the safety of the customer database and number protection functions that increase the level of confidentiality for users of financial platforms, the largest marketplaces and taxi aggregators. The growth of the IVR segment and call processing is facilitated by the development of service integration with CRM and other business systems, the introduction of AI, the introduction of speech analytical tools, and the automation of routine processes in companies. Intelligent routing is in demand in fast-growing industry segments such as delivery services and e-commerce. In addition, its popularity is facilitated by the ability to optimize the work of internal structures of user companies (sales departments, personnel management, client service, support). The development of the cloud solutions market for contact centers is ensured by the expansion of the service functionality, enrichment with services, as well as an increase in business activity and the transition of some customers from foreign solutions to domestic software.

According to the results of 2023, the market leader is the company MTS Exolve that occupies the first positions in most of the product segments under study, with the exception of the "Numbering Management" sector, where the company "" Internod(brand owner Runexis and "" providing telephone Plusophone numbers Cloudy for rent) is in the lead, and the "CC solution" area, where the first place belongs to the company actively Voximplant developing this area. The total share of MTS Exolve was 47%. In second place is Voximplant with 15%, and closes the top three "" with Beeline a result of 7%. TMT^[10]

2022: The development of open APIs in Russia will create conditions for the emergence of innovative services and business models

FinTech Association February 14, 2022 presented the results of a study on the application of Open APIs Russian financial in the market "Areas of standardization of Open APIs and the mandatory publication of them by participants in the financial services market in Russia." The document was prepared jointly with an international consulting company. Accenture

As part of the study, the following tasks were set:

• Prioritize the scope of Open APIs for standards development
• determine the approach to the mandatory and recommended provision of APIs by market participants;
• determine the necessary conditions for the implementation of Open API standards, taking into account both global practice and the opinions of market participants.

Experts analyzed the international experience and problems of the Russian financial services market in terms of the potential for using Open APIs and gathered opinions of consumers and market participants on the demand for new services based on Open APIs and the complexity of their implementation.

The study notes that the development of the Open API in Russia will create conditions for the emergence of innovative services and business models, the involvement of new players in the financial market, expand opportunities for the development of partnerships and cooperation, reduce the costs and risks of integration, including at the cross-industry level.

Open APIs can contribute to the development of a large range of new solutions in a number of areas, for example:

• exchange of information about the client (with the consent of the client) and his account - for new financial management services in a "single window" (PFM services), personalization of offers and credit decision-making;
• comparison and selection of financial products on aggregator platforms and marketplaces;
• "embedding" financial services and services in third-party platforms;
• seamless payments and transactions with financial products through third-party platforms;
• identification and knowledge of the customer "as-a-service" for financial institutions.

The study collected estimates of the relevance of Open API applications to consumers and market participants. In addition, estimates of the complexity of implementation by financial market participants were taken into account. Based on this, the prioritization of the implementation of Open API standards was proposed.

The full version of the study can be found here.

The study made it possible to consolidate the opinions of financial market participants and consumers of financial services regarding the development of the Open APIs in Russia and formulate proposals on priorities and approaches to their implementation. Open and non-discriminatory data exchange using the Open API will contribute to the development of competition in the financial market, as well as expand opportunities for consumers to choose, purchase and use financial products and services, - commented Tatyana Zharkova, General Director of the FinTech Association.

For the purpose of this study, a survey of 1000 individuals and 500 representatives of small and medium-sized businesses was conducted in 85 regions, in-depth interviews and an open survey of 70 participants in the financial market (banks, insurance and investment companies, MFIs, NPFs and financial players)

2021

SWIFT published a report on the potential of the API

On October 13, 2021, SWIFT in Russia shared the results of a report that examines the potential of APIs and their role for the development of international finance, and provides detailed information on how SWIFT uses APIs as part of its strategy to ensure instant transactions anywhere in the world.

The document provides an overview of the range of API applications for financial market development and the capabilities of SWIFT for wider use of this technology.

The first API was launched by SWIFT in 2017, with more than two billion API operations completed through SWIFT in 2020. This is 120% more than in 2019. There are 20 innovative APIs available on the SWIFT developer portal. SWIFT also partners with trusted third-party vendors from its community who can offer services to users through the SWIFT API channel.

The emergence of open APIs contributed to the dynamic development of the platform economy: thanks to open specifications and business standards for APIs, it became easier for market participants to develop new online services and respond quickly and economically to its needs. The platform model is very relevant for the financial services industry, where many participants exchange information and are involved in complex transaction flows. APIs can be used to deliver real-time services that are increasingly in demand as they improve customer experience by improving responsiveness, transparency, and efficiency.

APIs have a number of significant advantages for use in financial services: APIs are great for real-time data processing, since they are able to provide instant data exchange between several applications owned by several owners, they provide flexible services that are easier to run, maintain, scale and modify; APIs can be quickly brought to market, reducing development time for new services from months to weeks; APIs give access to data on demand, have a lower cost of ownership, which reduces capital costs for their implementation, and do not require complex integration.

Open APIs and other third-party tools, along with the availability of public cloud services, have contributed to the development of the platform economy over the past 20 years. The flexibility such an ecosystem provides creates value across industries, including financial. In such a model, platform owners are responsible for core infrastructure support, market access, security, and management. They offer open APIs, off-the-shelf developer toolkits, and test platforms to enable third-party players to quickly build products, services, and applications, increasing platform capabilities and attracting additional traffic from end users.

The model of platform solutions developing thanks to API is very relevant for the financial services sector. In the payments space, the initial impetus for API use was given by regulators who sought to increase competition in the banking sector, create a level playing field for new entrants and give bank account holders more control over their data. Today, open banking services based on APIs are mandatory in an increasing number of countries. The securities industry - with all its complexities and many players - can also benefit significantly from a consistent approach to implementing APIs and platform models.

Banks and other major financial market players can play a crucial role in shaping the innovation ecosystem. Using the API, they will manage data, assets, and digital identification of customers. Banks can partner with small and medium-sized innovative startups, giving a boost to their own development and preventing the monopoly behavior of tech giants. By combining financial data with other customer data, banking platforms gain a great advantage in predictive analytics of customer needs.

While APIs have significant potential for innovative transformation of financial services, complications still exist. It seems important to overcome such a problem as the fragmented development of the API, which has worsened in the financial industry in recent years. When any participant can develop and publish their own API specifications and update them as they wish, fragmentation becomes inevitable, and this in turn limits API use to narrow groups of users. This issue is particularly relevant in the financial services industry, where data identification, security, integrity and interoperability are of particular importance and cross-border transactions are carried out by multiple counterparties. Fragmentation is caused by inconsistent business models, differences in identification schemes and security settings, a variety of APIs and their application by organizations, as well as non-standard data models.

SWIFT is looking for uniform business standards to ensure API compatibility for financial transactions. The global financial community is on track to adopt ISO 20022 for cross-border payments by November 2025. Regulators require financial institutions to use unified APIs to ensure interoperability of products and services. And SWIFT offers a standardized API approach that relies on consumption and data models, identification, authentication, and the Open API specification.

SWIFT will continue to leverage API capabilities to deliver instant on-demand information and transactional services across its entire network, becoming an open two-way platform, and will open access to its 11,000-plus community to enhanced platform-based native API channel and innovative API-accessible services developed by both the community and third-party vendors.

API security becomes the highest priority for enterprises

As follows from the results of the Imvision "API Security is Coming"^[11], as the number of attacks on application programming interfaces grows (API), the security associated with their implementation and use is an increasing concern for organization leaders, reports ZDNet^[12].

APIs connect different technology services and systems. They can process requests from clients, work with server-side instructions, and facilitate data collection and processing.

While the feature sets contained in the API may be of real value to the enterprise market, which is increasingly focused on data every year, they could also open up a new cybersecurity problem for users - API attacks are expected to grow in parallel with further cloud adoption.

Imvision interviewed more than 100 cybersecurity professionals in the US and Europe to gain insight into the current state of API security at enterprises. According to the report, 91% of respondents believe that API security should be a priority in the next two years, especially given that more than 70% of corporate organizations are estimated to use more than 50 APIs.

Respondents consider access control (63% of respondents), regular testing (53%), as well as anomaly detection and prevention (43%) as the main aspects of API security. In total, 8 out of 10 IT administrators want more control over their organization's APIs.

However, finding a holistic approach to API security remains a challenge. More than 80% of organizations are estimated to either use or plan to use a centralized API security management solution - such as the API Management Platform (APIM) - but only a third of respondents believe that their API settings adequately protect them from modern cyber attacks.

Other statistics noted in the report:

• 19% of businesses test their APIs daily for signs of abuse;
• 4 of 5 organizations allow partners or users to access data using external APIs;
• API strategies currently focus on application performance (64%) and development and integration (58%);
• shadow APIs are considered the most vulnerable, according to 40% of respondents;
• 64% of respondents said that their current solutions do not provide reliable API protection.

As the main barriers to improving the security of the API, the company named the integration of API solutions with current systems and workflows, as well as ensuring the visibility of the overall use of the API.

2019

TAdviser study together with PJSC VTB Bank with the participation of Skolkovo: API transformation begins in the banking sector of Russia

A survey of 25 banks in the top 100 largest financial organizations in the Russian market showed that 75% of them have already begun or are planning to use open APIs. More than 70% of banks expect the regulator to develop standards and recommendations in this area. The risks of confidential data leakage and concerns related to the misuse of open information impede the development of the API. Russian IT companies have the necessary competencies and are ready to help banks carry out API transformation.

Main article: API transformation begins in the banking sector of Russia

Central Bank invited about 20 banks to participate in a pilot in the field of open APIs

On August 21, 2019, it became known that the Bank of Russia acted as the coordinator of a pilot project in the field of open APIs (application software interfaces) for the integration of bank services within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). At the time of the release of the material, the Central Bank, together with the central banks of the EAEU countries, is preparing the pilot for implementation. Bankers who received a proposal from the Central Bank told Kommersant about this. In total, about 20 credit institutions received a letter from the regulator, which must give an answer about their readiness to participate by August 23. Read more here.

Securities industry ready for API

On August 2, 2019, it became known that a joint study by SWIFT and BCG revealed an increase in API use amid the desire of companies to improve efficiency and offer services.

The scope of the securities market service is close to a turning point in the implementation of application programming interfaces (APIs) in the context of firms' desire to improve efficiency and implement modern business models.

During 2018 alone, API awareness among asset managers increased by 26% (from 46% to 72%), according to a BCG survey. Growing commercial interest is driving pilot schemes and application scenarios, especially between management companies and their Castodians.

APIs are able to help the securities industry deal with numerous and diverse types of assets, complex information sharing, and increasing fees pressure. The report outlines four areas where APIs can benefit the entire industry:

• Efficiency and cost savings through automated data sharing
• Access to real-time information such as settlement status and intraday risk
• Extras: Enriched Data and Analytics
• Operational metrics that allow service providers to compare performance among players in the market

In the securities industry, the implementation of APIs is slower than in other areas of financial services, partly due to the lack of regulatory framework and insufficient consistency in the readiness of market players to accept APIs. Asset management companies differ significantly in their technical equipment and openness to interacting with providers through APIs. About 56% of respondents in the BCG survey consider the level of API implementation in post-trading to be "experimental," while just 21% say it is "high" or "medium."

API can be a powerful incentive for innovation in post-trading, as was the case in the payment industry and in other areas of banking. Interest in this technology is growing, and the first results of the experiments look promising. But to really drive and accelerate the widespread adoption of APIs, we need to address uncertainty about standards and improve understanding of the maturity of the technology,

The report provides four reasons why the industry should implement APIs:

• Interaction within the framework of a common infrastructure. Fundamental elements of API solutions such as identity, authentication, security, and network connection management should be consistent at the industry level, not between individual firms.
• Coordination of API standards to maintain compatibility. The proliferation of multiple standards can reduce API utilization efficiency. The industry needs a single API standard that will work between all providers.
• Support for network APIs, not p2p solutions. Firms can benefit from network APIs: for example, one call to check the status of a settlement from a broker-dealer can be directed to several castodians at the same time. The network solution will support convergence both to explain the data and for other API characteristics.
• Meet stringent safety and sustainability standards. For successful development, any API solution must have a high level of data protection and stability.

API was one of the key technologies in the digital transformation of the entire banking sector. Now API is infiltrating the securities service industry and becoming a leading technology among companies looking to move to digital service. Despite the existing difficulties for API adoption in terms of interoperability and security, we believe that they will be overcome and expect further implementation of the technology in the near future.

The implementation of APIs in the SWIFT securities market is capable of achieving key goals such as cost reduction and creating additional business opportunities for market participants and, especially, for management companies and end investors. Therefore, NSD studies the use of open APIs and actively cooperates with SWIFT in the standardization of API technology and the practical use of this technology in global post-trading,

APIs of European banks were not ready to fulfill the requirements PSD2

On July 10, 2019, it became known that against the background of the rapid approach to the date of entry into force of Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS), which are the basis of the PSD2 Directive, representatives of the Swedish the open banking platform Tink declare that the European credit the institutes failed to provide third-party suppliers with the technological environment necessary to access payments, to data as required by the law. More. here

See also

• Open data
• Software Development Kit (SDK)