Banks should have API's- Sunil Shenoy

Posted: 8th June 2010

Banks should have API's

Since I have come back to India from New Zealand, I have been getting myself setup to work and manage my finances in India.

Banks in India are all on board with e-banking which is really good. The e banking solutions which the banks provide lets you do most of the banking tasks you want to do.The one thing the two banks which I have an account with share is having a really bad user interface to their banking system.

As a person who is passionate about simple user interface I did not enjoy the experience of using the online system of all these banks. I fail to understand why all these banks who talk about good customer service, provide me with a bad customer service online. A good user interface is part of a good customer service online.

Here my take on what a good banking interface should be like and why banks should provide developers with API's

A simple banking system user interface, should be designed to

Highlight the common tasks I want to do, when I get into my account(dashboard)
Within each tasks, highlights the function which are most important and tones down the voice on all other elements on the page.
As I move through the system process / tasks, take the information from the previous step and display it. This helps me assure
Highlights the important details and tones down the voice. For example, where my account is located has little relevance to how much money I have in the account.

Both ICICI and IDBI's online banking interfaces fail to do so. Instead all I see when I log in is links all over screen. Most of the functions, I will never use. A link farm is what I thought of it the first time I logged in.

Banks should work on having a API's. Here are some reasons, I think banks should provide a API for their online banking system.

Benefits :

You help outside designers / developer improve your interface. Have a contest and maybe the best user interface as voted by your users wins are price.
You let developers create new finance tools using the data provided. Budgeting, Tracking your expenditure etc. See mint.com, for all things possible.
New features which you never thought of get created. It's easier to think you will think of all the tools your users require, but someone outside your team might have better ideas.

Concerns about implementing a API to a secure system always is a issue, here are some ways to avoid it.

Only provide the developer with read access to certain parts of the system. Account number, Balance, Last 40 transactions are all most developers need to create a system which provides Finance utility.
Hide details which you think are confidential from the API's access. Signature, Address, Phone number, Nominations are not to be allowed for access.

If providing an API is hard to do, which I fail to believe, provide users with an export functions their statements into .OFX(Open Financial Exchange) format. wesabe.com will be of good use and a finance management tool I can then use.