Banks, FinTechs Find New Open-Data Use Cases

Banks and FinTechs continue to discover new opportunities in unlocking corporate clients’ financial data, with banks embracing data integration for their own product development initiatives, and FinTechs finding new ways to collaborate with each other.

This week’s roundup of the latest open banking initiatives finds new use-cases in business payments, procurement, corporate cards and more.

Mastercard Taps FinTech for Biz Card Boost

Mastercard wants to expand Europe’s commercial card adoption, and is turning to a FinTech partner to help. This week, Mastercard and Cardlay announced a collaboration that will see Mastercard connecting its network of European issuing banks to Cardlay’s commercial card technology, which unlocks corporate card transaction data for value-added services, including automated expense management and VAT claim processes.

In a statement, Jørgen Christian Juul, founder and CEO of Cardlay, highlighted the importance of industry collaboration in enhancing corporate financial services.

“Working closely with Mastercard is a testament to our vision to enrich all transactions for the future of banking and finance,” he said. “Our platform is championing a culture of collaboration throughout the industry, enabling us to provide a better customer experience to corporate cardholders.”

Bankin’ Steps Into Payments APIs

France’s Bankin’ announced this week the launch of the Bridge Pay API, an expansion of the FinTech’s data integration offering for developers. The company, which operates a consumer-facing app that enables users to consolidate their bank accounts, also services developers with its API services.

According to TechCrunch, the launch of Bridge Pay means Bankin’ is expanding its data integration capabilities for developers beyond banking data and into payments, enabling those developers to add payment initiation capability within their own solutions, with support for 12 French banks.

Reports highlighted the opportunity this API has in the B2B payments space in particular, enabling a company to initiate payroll transactions or supplier payments from directly within their payroll or accounts payable portals.

AccountantsWorld Unlocks Payroll Data for FinTechs

One B2B FinTech embracing the API opportunity for payroll is AccountantsWorld, a U.S.-based accounting technology company that announced this week the launch of the two-way Payroll Relief API. The solution is designed to unlock human resources, human capital management and payroll data, and enable that information to flow freely between various platforms.

The API is designed for third-party finserv providers, with integrations currently in-place at SwipeClock’s Workforce HUB as well as HR software provider Guhroo, according to the company’s blog, which noted more integrations with other FinTechs are on their way.

In a statement, AccountantsWorld Co-Founder and President Sharada Bhansali said the API “also introduces new service capabilities and revenue potential to our Payroll Relief customers, giving them an important competitive edge, especially for smaller and mid-sized accounting/payroll firms. It will now be possible for our customers to efficiently manage HR, talent, time and attendance, payroll processing, payroll compliance and employee portals for their clients.”

Crédit Agricole Invests in Data Aggregation

In another initiative reflecting the embrace of unlocking data in France’s financial services sector, financial institution (FI) Crédit Agricole announced this week the acquisition of data aggregator Linxo Group, which provides bank data aggregation and payment initiation services compliant with Europe’s PSD2 regulations.

The bank is acquiring a majority stake in the data technology company, which Crédit Agricole said will enable the FI to expand product development by wielding bank data for retail and corporate customers. The acquisition “will enable the [bank] to take full advantage of the innovation opportunities offered by changes in regulations,” the FI’s CEO of Payment Services Bertrand Chevallier said in a statement.

Palette Reflects on Build-Versus-Buy

As more FIs begin to understand the benefit of open banking and FinTech collaboration, they’re acknowledging the boosted customer satisfaction that comes with enabling third parties to unlock bank data, while also expanding product offerings to clients without the expense of developing proprietary solutions in-house.

But according to Palette Software General Manager of the Americas Michael Cichy, FIs are also approaching the build-versus-buy with a new outlook on the ability to unlock their own data when integrating third-party FinTech solutions.

In Palette’s case, that meant the recent launch of a purchase-to-pay solution that banks can white label for their own corporate customers, a solution that Cichy told PYMNTS in a recent interview emphasizes the ability to integrate that P2P data with other back-office services for corporates, while also enabling FIs to unlock that P2P data for additional corporate products like financing and lockbox services.