Joris Hensen, founder and co-lead of Deutsche Bank’s API program, explains what he is looking forward to at the Open Banking Expo Awards on 19 October, and why building and offering APIs “may take more time than expected”.
1. What development in the Open Banking space, in your opinion, should people be paying attention to?
New EU proposals, such as the Open Finance Framework, aim to open up banks’ data further. The question is: How can we prepare for this today and develop new product opportunities from it?
2. Do you have a key achievement in the Open Banking space from the past year you are able to share?
Joris Hensen of Deutsche Bank
We launched a bank-wide API platform that enables business units around the world to make APIs usable internally and externally. With this platform, we can now translate our global offering into interesting API-based banking products.
Furthermore, with the launch of our embedded finance portfolio, we are now able to integrate banking products such as account opening or SME lending into the platforms of our partners, thus allowing them to offer new features and products to their own customers.
3. Are there any areas where pace has been slower than expected?
Building and offering APIs is not just about technology, but often requires a lot of internal work to fully digitise the necessary processes. These are important steps that may take more time than expected.
Ultimately, it’s about offering customers new ways to use their own banking data – for example, in the products of the bank’s partners. Creating more and more of these offerings is extremely important for the acceptance of Open Banking among end customers.
4. Any organisations or players you feel are the ones to watch, trailblazing in this space?
I find it exciting to observe the different markets in terms of Open Banking and embedded finance. That is why I am looking forward to the Open Banking Expo Awards. At this event, we will see many exciting products that I believe will give the audience great ideas on how they can shape their own product development and tap into new markets.
Joris Hensen is speaking at Open Banking Expo UK & Europe on 18-19 October about what’s next for global Open Banking, alongside Charlotte Crosswell, chair of CFIT, Santander’s head of payments Robert White, and Nilixa Devlukia, chair of the Open Finance Association – get your ticket here.
Find out more about the Open Banking Expo Awards and get your ticket for the ceremony.
