Payment testing company FIME is releasing a new kit named TrustAPI, a fully automated test tool for open banking application programming interfaces (APIs), software allowing two different programs to communicate.
TrustAPI will enable banks and third-party providers to verify whether or not an API is compliant with the standards set out in the EU’s Revised Payment Service Directive (PSD2). The benefit is that these companies can now launch new open banking services quicker.
The new solution is powered by the company’s new FIME Test Factory 4.0 platform. It enables automation, digitalization and customization of the open API testing process.
Initially, TrustAPI will support testing conforming to the STET, a major European automated clearing house, open-access API standard. However, FIME is hard at work to incorporate other standards into the test library too. Eventually, the test library will include the Berlin Group’s NextGenPSD2 and the Open Banking UK (OBUK) API standards.
“Open banking API standards are proving increasingly popular to efficiently achieve regulatory compliance, interoperability and safe data transfer,” comments Reza Rahmani Fard, head of payments marketing at FIME. “This industry-first test platform is smoothing the path to open banking. Harnessing the power of these standardization efforts, we’re enabling stakeholders to deliver new open-access services quickly and cost-effectively – without compromising on quality.”
While parts of PSD2 were originally implemented in 2016, the final parts of the directive will only snap into force in September 2019. However, not every developer is ready for this, according to research from Tink, the API developer.
In early July it revealed that none of the bank APIs it had tested so far lived up to the standard set out by PSD2. Even though the banks said they had recognized the problems and were hard at work adjusting them, Tink feared there was a risk of “derailing the vision of PSD2 and compromising the experience of millions of consumers.”
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