APIs

Speed isn't enough. There also has to be value and new products, says Icon Solutions' Toine Van Beusekom.

U.K. fintech Rapyd is offering clients the ability to accept all payment methods through one application interface, a digital service it says eliminates the need for companies to develop complicated payments infrastructures.

While open banking is a fascinating movement poised to benefit consumers and spark significant innovation in financial services, the world must weigh convenience vs. risk and approach the inherent privacy and security concerns with caution, says Imperva's Terry Ray.

By targeting the API rather than scripting a form fill, bad actors are leveraging the same efficiency and flexibility that APIs provide developers, says Cequence Security's Matt Keil.

The company, the product of a big merger shortly before the outbreak, had to build portals on the fly, help many customers shift to mobile and accomplish in days tasks that once took months, its digital chief says.

Cross River Bank, a banking-as-a-service provider to fintechs, has signed Remitly to leverage its new push-to-card international payment service for near-real-time remittances.

The short-term coronavirus response revealed most merchants will need a more robust option for digital payments — and that’s prompting fresh investment in what was expected to be a slow period.

At the start of 2020, the overriding security concern when it came to payments was fraud. After all, before the days of the global coronavirus pandemic, no one had really viewed hygiene as being a particular selling point.

With access to comprehensive and accurate financial data delivered through advanced APIs, financial services providers no longer have to develop personalized experiences themselves, argues Envestnet's Brandon Rembe.

In the tug-of-war between banks and third parties over who controls access to customer account data, payments are primed to play a key role as banks start to take action and regulators begin to weigh in.