Ozone launches Open Finance Hub

Open Banking API provider Ozone has launched an Open Finance Hub to support challenger banks and e-money institutions (EMIs) in the delivery of APIs. 

London-based Ozone said that the new fully-managed platform, which is based on Ozone’s API software and hosted in the cloud, will provide financial institutions (FIs) with all the tools to manage third-party providers and “handle fine-grained consent”. 

The hub has been designed to enable financial firms and EMIs to develop new applications quickly and reduce the ongoing cost of ownership. 

Chris Michael, CEO of Ozone, said it was offering a “critical industry resource” to challenger banks, neo banks, small to medium-sized FIs and EMIs at a time when the Financial Conduct Authority and the European Banking Authority “have made clear their expectations” for FIs to have compliant open APIs. 

“Delivering Open Banking APIs is a complex and specialist area, and the Ozone team have leveraged their deep expertise to develop a platform that takes away that complexity,” he said. 

In the past, FIs have viewed APIs as a “compliance headache”, according to Ozone, and were concerned about whether there would be enough third parties wanting to connect, but it added that this will change as the regulators increasingly focus on PSD2 compliance. 

Michael said: “Open APIs are an important strategic channel to market for financial institutions of all sizes. They provide a lower cost route to serve more customers in more flexible ways via the platforms they want to use.” 

The Ozone Open Finance Hub and its standards-based API software have been developed by the founders of the UK Open Banking standard, and Ozone provides the official sandbox for the Open Banking Implementation Entity. 

Ozone’s API software helps institutions deliver open APIs that are fully compliant with the OpenID Foundation’s FAPI and CIBA profiles and also provides support for global standards. 

In May 2020, the Central Bank of Brazil announced new Open Banking regulation along with a partnership with TecBan and Ozone.