25% of Asia Pacific banks to deploy API strategy by 2018: IDC

Twenty-five per cent of Asia Pacific banks will have an Application Programming Interface (API) strategy by 2018, a report by IDC Financial Insights said on Thursday.

According to the IDC report, in the long-term for banks, the strategy to open their APIs will decide whether they are disintermediated by fintech companies and lose revenue to competition or they collaborate with third party providers and create more avenues of value and revenue creation.

"APIs represent fundamental shifts in IT, in how data is provided and used, how functionalities are developed and deployed, and what level of control customers have," said Michael Araneta, Assistant Vice President, IDC Financial Insights Asia Pacific.

This presents a massive shift in how the existing IT architecture can be made ready and customisable to accommodate the changing requirement without losing control over data, Araneta added.

The IDC Financial Insights report covers the fundamentals of open banking API, discusses the key changes in the consumer behaviour and business economics that compel banks to open their APIs to the external world.

--IANS

anuj/na/dg