Is open banking for everyone? It is now!

Open banking has had a massive impact on the financial industries. Businesses ranging from gaming and lending, e-commerce and travel, streaming services, and SaaS platforms have all enjoyed the benefits of smooth modern payments and detailed insights into customer bank accounts for years. The principle is great; more data and simpler transactions. 

But it has not been inclusive.  

Most small and medium-sized businesses have been left out of this evolution, as the implementations are deemed too costly or too hard to do. The technical threshold is simply overwhelming.  

Another group left out are the curious, but careful businesses. Those who want to try out the benefits or customer acceptance, before committing to a full implementation. The process and programming required are still daunting and need to be addressed before any payments or data insight transactions can be made. 

Recognize yourselves in either of these scenarios? Fear not, a solution is here, and it’s called Streams! Launched by Finshark in October 2022, the self-serve open banking platform enables any business, big or small, curious or cautious, to get started with the click of a button. Zero integration, no code, and nada tech skills are required! 

Before we can understand Streams and the powers they give your business, we must understand open banking. There’s a regulatory and technical explanation as to why open banking has become a game changer in the last few years. 

The European Union decided on a directive called PSD2. The short explanation of its effect is that banks must open up their data (hence open banking) to licensed partners, like Finshark. This gives the end-users more power over their data and financial freedom while opening up new innovations in the space.  

Parallel with this the technical reality has rapidly changed with the introduction and adoption of e-commerce, high-speed Internet, smartphones, the Internet of Things, and online payment and banking. Companies’ and individuals’ demand is changing, and new, innovative businesses meet that demand, even within the banking scene. 

Open banking basically consists of two different types of offers; Payment Initiation (also known as PI) and Account Information (also known as AI). 

Open banking payments are basically like a bank transfer, where money is sent from one account to another. But, with open banking, these transfers, known as account-to-account payments, can be initiated in any channel, outside of the banks’ proprietary systems. 

Account Information through open banking gives businesses like yours a possibility to get insights that previously were completely reserved only for the banks; a snapshot view into customers’ bank accounts. Encrypted, and secured with authentication methods like BankID or MitID, but accessible!

To answer that question, let’s talk about the two open banking categories separately: 

When you’re getting paid or paying out, Finshark is allowed to withdraw funds from one account and transfer it to another. It’s that simple. No middlemen, and no extra costs. And it works for recurring payments as well!

The end-user is faced with a payment flow similar to popular payment apps like Swish, Vipps, or MobilePay. The flow can be embedded on your website or stand-alone without any installation or other apps besides an authorization app like BankID or MitID. 

We’ve written, and talked, tons about this before, so if you want in-depth knowledge, please see our links below. 

In the age of information, it comes as no surprise that trustworthy data is dead important to most businesses. However, companies in need of financial data have often had to rely on customers’ own estimations, pdfs or paper copies of salary statements, or even year-old tax declarations. 

This is crucial information for companies like lenders, online gaming, tenants and more, yet it has been so prone to fraud, human error, or cheating. Open banking solves that as individuals can grant companies access to a snapshot of their bank accounts. The information can be used to verify someone’s income or erase doubts about their financial risks.

The power of data is now in the hands of the individual customer, and not locked away in some digital bank vault. 

Businesses in demand of financial information from their customers won’t find a simpler way to get it than through Streams. And there are two strings to that bow, because users won’t find a simpler way to give access than through Finshark’s authorization flow. All they really need is a smartphone and a way to identify themselves, normally with a Strong Customer Authentication (ASC) like BankID or MitId.

For most open banking projects, you would need to have several planning and scoping meetings, set up requirements, read our detailed API documentation, create an app, integrate it into your system, test it, and launch it. For big, or tech-savvy, companies, this is not an issue, and it gives any website, app, or SaaS financial superpowers!

For small or medium enterprises, it used to be tough. Without the tech muscles in-house, it even could be expensive. With Streams, everything has changed. Needless to say, large enterprises are welcome as well!

To get started with modern payments, instant payouts, account information, salary verification, and more, all you have to do is follow these steps. 

Open banking is safe, and protected by licenses and SCAs. It enables modern payments and payouts that are future-proof, uncomplex, and fast. It opens new possibilities, decreases the risk of fraud, and enhances reliability in financial account information. 

And now, it’s also easy to get started, with zero integration, no coding, and nada tech skills. 

Welcome to Streams!