The banking industry has gone through a significant transformation over the past few decades. Banks are realizing the importance of shifting their focus from being product centric to customer centric, keeping customer experience at the front and center of the banking experience.
Digital transformation in banking is no longer about moving from the traditional to the digital world. With retail and corporate customers’ touch points increasing rapidly, banks need to shift their emphasis to improving customer journeys and extending customer outreach—and thereby increasing revenue.
Case in point: India’s extensive adoption of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) which can be attributed to the pivotal role that APIs play. UPI, a real-time payment system, has revolutionized the way financial transactions are conducted across the country. APIs have empowered businesses and developers to seamlessly integrate UPI into their applications and services, resulting in widespread usage. From enabling mobile and online payments to facilitating merchant transactions and recurring payments, UPI APIs have fostered an ecosystem where individuals and businesses can effortlessly access and apply the convenience of UPI, transforming India’s digital payment landscape.
APIs have also become instrumental in enabling banks to offer customized financial services and solutions, tailored to the unique requirements of businesses. Through API integration, corporate clients gain direct access to a wide array of banking services, ranging from real-time account information to efficient payment initiation and cash management tools. This streamlined access enhances the overall customer experience, reducing manual processes and improving efficiency. Furthermore, by collaborating with third-party developers and fintech partners via APIs, banks can continually innovate and expand their service offerings, ensuring that they remain at the forefront of meeting the dynamic and evolving financial demands of their corporate clientele.
Axis Bank, the third largest private sector bank in India, has firmly built its reputation over the last three decades as one of the first, new generation, customer focused banks. APIs have been an integral part of Axis Bank for years, since they bring in business automation, scalability and greater acceleration in deploying innovative services. The bank’s predominant focus has been on the consumer and transaction banking space, to develop and integrate APIs for its retail and corporate customers using various banking channels.
Axis Bank was on the lookout for a robust, secure and scalable API management solution that would give its customers a world-class banking experience. It wanted a solution that would make it easier to work with new-age fintech companies, while also maintaining the high levels of security, reliability and efficiency for which the bank is known for.