How API Platforms Democratize Data, Enable Real-Time Experiences

“Financial infrastructure is still evolving. It’s still being modernized and is still being digitized,” Salman Syed, newly-appointed chief operating officer at Fidel API, told PYMTS in a recent conversation.

Those technologies offer the chance to democratize how financial data is leveraged across a variety of use cases, including using card-level data to enable corporate and consumer expense management solutions  — in real time.

He noted that application programming interfaces (APIs), such as those from Fidel API, bring the transaction data for the payment card that is already in a person’s wallet and feed it directly into another provider’s expense management software, as an example of one use case. Fidel API’s tools can enable a broad range of services and use cases including customer attribution, loyalty and rewards and personal financial management.

Developers Need the Tools

In doing so, he said, it’s critical that the developers have the right tools, and the access to data, in order to help those use cases make the leap from concept to reality.

The connectivity that Fidel API provides, he said, can help developers streamline their connections into various payment schemes to bring, for example, contextual loyalty offers to users, delivered in real time.

Syed comes to Fidel API from his previous role at Marqeta, where, from 2016 onward, he helped build the company’s sales and partnerships organizations. Earlier this year, his new company announced a $65 million Series B funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from existing investors including NYCA Partners and QED Investors, which will help it scale its workforce, product offerings and global presence.

Read more: Bain Capital Leads $65M Series B for Fidel API

In tandem with the announcement of Syed’s appointment this week, Fidel API also said that it had opened a San Francisco office to be closer to clients and partners. Syed told PYMNTS that the new location follows an expansion of the geographic footprint for the firm that began in the U.K., stretched into Europe and then broke ground in the United States (initially in New York City).

“We’re starting to go back to a post-COVID world where it’s OK to be in offices with people again,” Syed said, “and we thought it would be critical to be close to customers and prospects.”

See also: Fidel API Names Mastercard Vet Salman Syed as COO