Learn about our API Centre service model, including the founding objectives and design considerations established by an industry working group, and benefits the service provides.
Vision
Our vision is to enable the industry to deliver innovative API-based services to support Kiwi financial wellbeing.
We contribute to a progressive, innovative, and trusted open banking ecosystem by enabling financial inclusion and promoting interoperable, innovative, safe, open, and efficient API-based services for Kiwis. We do this through effective and inclusive industry governance and user working groups, having a team of capable in-house experts and encouraging input from wider ecosystem stakeholders.
Five foundations
The five foundations of the API Centre model are:
1. Innovation first
- Provides common standards as building blocks
- Encourages innovation value-add
- Enables payments-related data innovation
2. Market driven
- Is responsive to market demand
- Opens up new business opportunities
- Is flexible to diverse business models
3. Industry led
- Provides central co-ordinating role
- Has balanced and open governance
- Encourages representation and brings innovators together
4. Inclusive and open
- Provides clear and flexible framework
- Has simple entry criteria
- Enables dynamic ecosystem and multiple connections
5. Distributed delivery
- Allows partners to define bi-laterals
- Parties manage risks and controls
- Parties determine delivery models and implementation
Founding objectives
The following objectives guided the design of the API Centre. They reflect the industry-led approach and reinforce the shared desire to simplify partnering and improve financial services and payments innovation.
- Simplification and consistency of delivery
The industry will have access to a shared API framework that allows for a consistent and usable specification to access, develop and deliver API-based offerings and applications. - Increased speed to market
Users of the framework will be able to draw on agreed common standards and specifications, resulting in faster and more efficient consumption of data and information in the market. - Services enhanced
Users of the framework will be able to provide enhanced levels of payments innovation and service, resulting in better outcomes for customers. - Simplified partnering
The API framework will allow for simplified partnering between API Providers and Third Parties, meaning new API-based technology will be extendable, evolving over time, and have simplified integration. - Optimal framework management
The API framework will provide clarity and deliver efficiency, while allowing for API Providers to manage risk and controls for access to customer data. - Simplified acquisition of new business
The API framework will enable API Providers and Third Parties to innovate and develop new business opportunities.
Design considerations
In developing the API service framework, the industry working group was mindful of the strategic intent behind this work and set the following design principles:
- Clarity - clearly articulate key terms, definitions and processes that are used in conjunction with APIs.
- Extensible - establish flexibility, allowing users to build on top of the core standard and then innovate and extend within their organisation. Framework mechanisms will then provide the ability for these innovations/extensions to be brought back to the API Centre and shared.
- Leverage - evaluate, reuse and leverage existing standards where appropriate.
- Simple - be easy to implement.
- Stable - provide a stable, transparent and backward-compatible environment where change is communicated, actioned and governed in a consistent manner.
- Mandatory set - have a mandatory set of core minimum standards.
- Security model - will provide an agreed appropriate security and authorisation model, and the account holder will have ongoing visibility and control over the terms of access to their data.
- Independence - preserve optionality in delivery models and implementation technology should be open.
Services
The API Centre services are designed to support Standards Users to use and operationalise our API standards. The ongoing development and improvement of our services takes into account the broad design considerations, key roles that need to be undertaken, overseas models and feedback from Standards Users, Community Contributors and industry stakeholders.
The API Centre provides the following services:
- Develops, maintains, and publishes payment-related API standards.
- Administers a development pipeline, in conjunction with the industry, identifying high value use cases to support new standards and improvements to existing standards.
- Manages the versioning and lifecycle of API standards from creation to expiry.
- Drives standards adoption and collaboration.
- Publishes the industry-wide Minimum Open Banking Implementation Plan.
- Manages applications from organisations wanting to join the API Centre as a Standards User, their subsequent onboarding, use of and compliance with the standards.
- Facilitates wider industry input and involvement with the standards through Community Contributor
- Provides customer experience guidelines to support consistent customer experiences.
- Manages a centralised sandbox, which is available to those who have joined the centre.
- Provides a central hub through which industry stakeholders can engage.
- Facilitates API Standards Users entering into bilateral partnerships to bring new innovations to market more simply and quickly.
Service benefits
On behalf of the payments industry, the API Centre:
- Builds an infrastructure foundation that can be re-used and evolved to the industry’s wider Payments Direction strategic objectives.
- Fosters and encourages a more dynamic and digital network, while also simplifying the partnering and development pathway for those in the open banking ecosystem.
- Enables the ongoing standardisation of an API set, ensuring APIs are maintained and managed, and new APIs and functionality are developed in response to market demand.
- Reduces duplication of effort across the industry and enhances delivery for both API Providers and Third Parties by centralising common activities, such as application, registration, onboarding, policy and guidelines, development lifecycle and sandbox services.
- Enables the delivery of an industry-led open banking framework which offers potential for growth of new business opportunities for those involved.
- Reduces the proliferation of bespoke APIs for common payment-related activities. Also reduces fragmentation that causes inefficiencies and inhibits the industry-wide development of new and innovative products and services.
- Creates and enables new capabilities that Standards Users can leverage, providing the potential for them to develop new service offerings or enhance existing ones.
- Creates cost efficiencies by providing universal API standards, so API Providers and Third Parties do not need to build different specs to interact with each other.