Finnish financial group OP opens up an extensive set of public APIs
The Finnish bank Osuuspankki (OP) has unveiled a public interface (API). This allows developers to create new applications based on the data available by the consortium. Anticipating changes in the market the group has expanded from traditional insurance business to mobility and beyond.
OP is the largest Financial group in Finland and is taking an open approach to the market disruptions. The company welcomes collaborators to access their data as well as get support for API and Product Development through the OP Developers service.
The offering of the public APIs comes with access to Banking, Weath management and insurance interfaces - traditionally related to the financial indistry. In addition the group has aggressively expanded to mobility and health care, both of which also have APIs available.
Third parties can create web applications or mobile apps to consume data and perform transactions. Initially the service provides the following interfaces for Banking and Wealth Management:
- Account APIs provide read-only methods to access your accounts and transactions information
- Payment APIs allow you to initiate and confirm SEPA payments between participants
- APIs for user's holdings, fund information and creating redemption and subscription orders
- APIs for user's holdings information
Later the company expects to add more in the field of healthcare and mobility. Developers can apply for free access to the interfaces. The service is currently in Beta phase, and there is a sandbox environment available for development and testing. Learn more from the documentation of OP Developer APIs.
Earlier in 2017 the financial group Nordea also made a pitch to developers. Nordea opened specific APIs to reach their 11 Million customers through high quality Open APIs in the Nordic countries through their Open Banking program.
Finland and other nordic countries are now a great place to be if you're in the Financial Technology (fintech) field.