Open Finance Suite vs API Gateway: What's the Difference?

According to McKinsey & Company, Asia-Pacific (APAC), customers will likely demand more financial services, given the growing population joining the consuming class.

Breakthroughs in digitalized financial services, including open banking and open finance, are making them increasingly popular worldwide, such that emerging countries in Southeast Asia are finding benefits from them.

It’s a crucial development, given that the World Bank emphasized that growing access to affordable financial services is vital for economic growth and reducing poverty.

It helps to maximize your resources to grow your retail banking business. Teaming up with open finance API partners such as Brankas will enable you to expand your reach and achieve your objectives.

How API Gateways Work

An API or Application Programming Interface Gateway serves as a single point of entry for the clients of an application. It sits between the clients and a set of backend services for the application. It takes the user’s requests, matches them to the backend service or station most suitable to fulfill them, and sends them back to the user.

API Gateways Features and Function

API Gateway features aggregate numerous data exchange operations that could’ve clogged your system, creating a slower user experience.

Below are a few features and functions you can perform with an API Gateway

• Enforce authentication and security policies: An API Gateway adds another layer of security between user inputs and your application’s backend, making it easy to manage and more secure.
• Monitor, log, analyze, and bill users: It’s straightforward to sift through customer data through the API Gateway; most software can create reports and logs for easy and simple management.
• Cache user data: This feature prevents your backend services from loading unnecessarily, improving overall performance.
• Load balancing and circuit breaking: API Gateways act as the middleman to help moderate and balance the data traffic from user inputs. This feature helps to ensure that your application continues running smoothly, even during high-traffic times such as limited-time sales or product launches.
• Protocol translation and service discovery: A core function of API Gateways is to translate API protocols from the devices customers use—whether laptop or smartphone—to your microservice protocols.

How Brankas' Open Finance Suite Works

Brankas' open finance suite uses Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) to provide you with an all-in-one digital platform for different financial services, including payment, remittance, and loan origination. Clients can access all these services through their bank of choice, or partner merchants.

The open finance suite doesn’t replace or overlap with your existing API management tools. Instead, it complements them. The problem with most open finance API implementations is that you’ll still need to meet a customer’s need. This entails adding weeks or months of work to build new sets of APIs per partner, delaying your operations.

In contrast, Brankas typically takes only days to weeks to build the open finance suite for partners. Moreover, Brankas' available finance suite partners have standardized APIs, enabling you to scale partner onboarding, reduce your time to market, and facilitate faster onboarding through the Brankas Sandbox and user acceptance testing (UAT) environment.

Features and Functions of Brankas Open Finance Suite

Brankas' banking-as-a-service platform and open finance suite provide you with functionalities to help you gather new customers and accelerate operations, such as the following:

• Monetize existing APIs: Open Finance Suite is a comprehensive, banking-as-a-service platform that allows for more monetization opportunities as you continuously onboard new partners.
• Host multiple financial services: The platform provides access to third-party services to expand the monetizable financial services you offer your customers. These include virtual credit card issuance, remittance, and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL).
• Adhere to the latest global security standards: Brankas' platform complies with Bank Indonesia SNAP and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) standards. It also adheres to the latest global security (ISO 27001 and PCI DSS) and local standards covering static code analysis, change management, and asset inventory.

Unlock Your Organization’s Banking-as-a-Service Potential with Open Finance Suite

As digitalized financial services become more mainstream, it helps to continuously innovate the internal operations of your business to capture the growing market. API Gateways are effective in managing your backend operations. However, most providers won’t give you a full API platform.

Partnering with financial services providers allows you to propel your business forward, staying competitive and relevant to your growing customers. Brankas' Open Finance Suite works with your existing API management tool to help you give more value to your customers in less time and keep your business up to date on the latest banking trends.

Get in touch with us to learn more about the Brankas Open Finance Suite and other banking products, such as Brankas Direct, to help you extend the reach of your services and connect more customers to your core banking system.