The document provides a comprehensive guide for Sri Lankan banks on utilizing APIs to enhance business models and improve operational efficiency. It highlights real-world examples, stages of API adoption, and the value of APIs in modernizing banking services, with insights from various banks' experiences, including Karnataka Bank and Wells Fargo. The report emphasizes the importance of API management in facilitating collaboration, enhancing customer experiences, and supporting innovation in the financial services sector.

1. Which APIs? Which Business Models?
A Real-World Guide for Sri Lankan Banks
July, 2021

2. What are APIs
and how do they help in business?

3. Why are we using APIs?
4
Access
to accurate
Data
on-demand
by the right people

4. What value do they add?
5
Cut costs & grow your business
Faster & cheaper workflows
Increased agility
10X customer experience

5. What does a good API look like?
6
It works :) Flexible, reliable & easy Interoperable

6. How have APIs been used in the banking
business?

7. 8
● Karnataka Bank was focused on increasing their digital banking
presence.
● Siloed systems and legacy core was a challenge. Most processes
were manual.
● An API management platform enabled rapid building of
standardized services for use across the bank & better integration
with India’s booming financial services ecosystem.
Our vision was to transform Karnataka Bank’s customer-facing touchpoints by modernizing and automating a
host of processes that were crucial towards achieving their corporate goals. Partnering with WSO2 on this
ensured that we had the muscle to match the mission.”
Anantha Raghava, CEO and founder of Exzatech (worked with Karnataka Bank on this project)
1000x
Increase in Productivity
80%
Processes Modernized
India

8. 9
● The bank’s existing systems slowed business processes,
prevented internal collaboration & wasn’t suited for secure
data sharing.
● An integration platform composed of APIs connected these
systems securely enabling new more richer customer
experiences (e.g., payments app with real-time payment
capability launched.)
Real-Time
On-Demand Experiences Enabled
Productivity
Through Collaboration
Philippines

9. 10
We’re making people’s lives richer by embedding financial services at the moment they’re at, and delivering
services to where the customer is at rather than making them come to us.”
Eric Halverson, SVP, head of gateway support & services at Wells Fargo
● The bank wanted to build on it’s API capabilities and leverage
the reach & capacities of its ecosystem of partners.
● Used API management software to build a common portal to
make banking and data services available, and for those
services to be discovered and subscribed to.
● Bank-partner collaboration delivered faster onboarding of
customers enabled to perform a broad range of functions,
adding to their convenience.
Increased
Number of Channels & Services
Faster
Customer Onboarding
USA

10. What are the stages of API adoption?

11. 12
Internal Use
STAGE
1
External Use With Existing Partners
STAGE
2
External Use With New Partners
STAGE
3
Stages of API adoption

12. 13
Internal use
STAGE
1
Workflow
Improvement
● Automate internal processes
● Reduce redundant processes
● Improve existing processes
● Add new channels on-the-go
● Seamless omnichannel experience
Expand Customer
Channels
Share KYC across products

13. ● Help streamline common financial tasks
● Provide better data for decision making
Large Corporate
Customers
Enhanced & automated
functions
14
External use with existing partners
STAGE
2
Stock Brokers, Bancassurance,
Foreign Exchange Dealers
Service Partners
& Suppliers
● Automate and streamline data sharing
● Offer new services & options to collaborate

14. 15
Can we
ignore the
ecosystem?

15. 16
External use with new partners
STAGE
3
Private Access
● Share data & services to innovate new end-consumer use cases
● Test & optimize services with trusted partners
● Simplify partner onboarding to scale faster
● Scale new services faster to amplify reach & revenue
Open Access
Automated ongoing verification
& validation

16. What are the business models relevant
to each stage?

17. 19
Internal use
STAGE
1
● Boost productivity
● Achieve virtual centralization
● Bolster risk management
Cut Costs
Workflow
Improvement
● Automate internal processes
● Reduce redundant processes
● Improve existing processes
● Add new channels on-the-go
● Seamless omnichannel experience
Expand Customer
Channels
Cut Costs
● Eliminate duplicating infrastructure
● Less engineering resources needed
Boost
Revenue
● Launch full range of owned
customer touch points
● Launch a neo bank subsidiary

18. 20
External use with existing partners
STAGE
2
Boost
Revenue
● Monetize new services
● Self-service options to buy
services
Service Partners
& Suppliers
● Automate and streamline data
sharing
● Offer new services & options to
collaborate
Cut Costs
● Less engineering time needed
● Outsource more non-core activities
● Help streamline common tasks
● Provide better data for decisions
Large Corporate
Customers
Cut Costs
● Less engineering time needed
● Outsource more non-core activities
Boost
Revenue
● Monetize new services
● Sell banking & tech infrastructure to
partners

19. 21
External use with new partners
STAGE
3
Private
Access
● Share data & services to innovate
new end-consumer use cases
● Test & optimize services with
trusted partners
● Simplify partner onboarding to
scale faster
● Scale new services faster to
amplify reach & revenue
Open
Access
Cut Costs
● Fewer resources for partner
onboarding & servicing
Cut Costs
● Avoid making costly mistakes when
scaling
Boost
Revenue
● Launch more customer-centric
services with new revenue models
● BaaS/ Banking-as-a-Platform
Boost
Revenue
● Further amplify revenue potential of
private access API business
models

20. 22
Cut costs & do more
Scale new revenue streams
Onboard new customers
Deliver personalized customer experiences
Keep ahead of digital disruption
Achieving
business goals
APIs
01
02
03
04
05

21. Looking for
inspiration?
24

22. *Grey logo indicates limited portal accessibility, thereby complicating full assessment 25
Source: INNOPAY Open Banking Monitor - Nov 2020 Benchmark on developer portals.

23. What APIs are banks actually building?
26
Source: Platformable’s Open Banking/Open Finance Quarterly Reports - Trends - Q1 2021
Popular voluntarily APIs
are those that drive new
customer acquisition

24. WSO2 Inc. Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved. This document or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of WSO2.
“A perennial absurdity is that SMEs end up scanning their paper bank statements, only for the data to be
manually re-entered into the underwriting systems of modern online lenders … open banking is starting make a
real difference at the grassroots level to UK business.”
Conrad Ford, CEO, Funding Options
28
Reduce “time to cash” on loans from months to minutes
Applications filled in under ten minutes.
3,000 transactions shared in seconds.
Risk assessed & cash dispensed in under 90 minutes.
+

25. Value addition with rich data APIs — BBVA
29

26. WSO2 Inc. Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved. This document or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of WSO2.
Embedding banking in your business — BBVA
30

27. WSO2 Inc. Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved. This document or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of WSO2.
APIs as new products — ABN Amro
31

28. WSO2 Inc. Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved. This document or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of WSO2.
Establishing clear business value — ABN Amro
32

29. What have our learnings been?

30. Don't be scared to share data
Compliance alone doesn't grow your business
Quickly adopt & test new approaches
Lessons from global deployments
34
Build an API business strategy (not an IT strategy)
Get the platform fundamentals right
Reliability & flexibility are key

31. What does it take to get going?

32. Build new customer experiences faster
36
Working with our key SI Partners, we enabled several global banks to integrate and
leverage their data, services and business capabilities to help them understand their
customers better and launch new products to market faster.
Leveraging WSO2’s modern API management and integration architectures, the banks
were able to enable their internal technical & business teams to be more agile, while
securely exposing data and services to fintech partners exploring innovative solutions to
consumer problems.
A Top 3 Bank
in Singapore
+ more
A Top 15 Bank
in the US

33. 37
● Deployed integration interfaces with modern integration strategies
● Standardized messaging formats through data transformation
● Enabled publishing managed APIs optimized for performance and
security
● Facilitated discovery and active adoption of APIs through
comprehensive dev portal
● Key capabilities isolated in different systems
● Legacy core—proprietary messaging formats + poor access to data + more
● Developers focused on battling compatibility issues
Enhanced agility to respond
to consumer needs
Challenge
Transformation
Results
WSO2 API Manager
Reduced time-to-market for
new services
Better utilized engineering
talent in higher ROI tasks

34. Simplify open banking compliance
38
Working with global SIs, we accelerated compliance and enabled banks with the
technology and strategic foundations to explore new fintech solutions without
compromising security and risk management.
WSO2’s API Manager, Enterprise Integrator and Identity Server enhanced by our Open
Banking Accelerators were deployed to help technical and operational teams execute the
difficult parts of open banking including customer authentication and consent
management in line with global standards. Customers were enabled to leverage the
industry-leading integration capabilities of our platform to onboard high quality fintech
partners and deliver new value for consumers carving out a lasting position of leadership
in emerging financial services ecosystems.
A top-tier bank
in Brazil
+ more

35. 39
● End-to-end ongoing compliance with standards
● Complex open banking capabilities delivered out-of-the-box
● Systems integration + message format transformation
● Capabilities to explore business ROI with highly-performant APIs,
microservices, GraphQL, dev portals & billing integration
● Lacking interfaces and data streams for compliance & business use
● Systems unsuited for key functions (e.g. consent management, customer auth)
● Evolving regulations demanding technical flexibility & dedicated resources
● Existing API platform unsuited to competitively explore business use cases
Accelerated continued
compliance with standards
Challenge
Transformation
Results
WSO2 API Manager
Enhanced consumer experience
& trust to drive adoption
Enabled impactful
collaboration with fintechs
WSO2 Open Banking
WSO2 Identity
Server

36. Harness emerging ecosystems to grow your business
40
We have enabled leading global banks to harness the growth potential of emerging
financial services ecosystems by helping them build owned marketplaces connecting
producers of new services built using the bank’s core capabilities with API consumers
building innovative end-consumer offerings.
WSO2’s API Manager was deployed in the form of our API Marketplace solution, designed
to utilize the out-of-the-box publisher and developer portals to create a collaborative
space for internal and external developers and business partners to execute their
commercial strategies faster leveraging the bank’s technology and services as a
platform.
A Top 10 Bank
in the US
+ more
A Top 3 Bank
in Singapore
+ more

37. 41
● Publisher & dev portals deployed as an API marketplace
● Trying-out, documentation, social features built-in
● Real-time analytics & version management for API publishers
● Billing engine integration + templated/ custom business plans
● Customizable UIs & workflows for seamless brand experience
● Lack of portals for publishing & discovering APIs stunting building a market
● Difficulty to track, manage, iterate & scale APIs for API publishers
● Obstacles to conveniently try-out services limiting adoption
Enabled platform banking
business models
Challenge
Transformation
Results
WSO2 API Manager
Enabled agile service iteration
with ecosystem players
Positioned for leadership in
financial services ecosystem

38. wso2.com
Thanks!
seshika@wso2.com | nadeeras@vsis.lk
| vsis.lk