Why banks have a hard time to adapt to PSD2, Part 1

Banks used snail mail for centuries and, some 45 years ago, they applied the same communication strategy to teletype networks, giving birth to the FIN standard, later codified as ISO15022. Paper letters turned into electronic messages, but little changed otherwise. Messages were sent from the sender to the recipient and little was specified about how one message relates to another or how to chain messages in a more complex workflow.

Enter PSD2, which requires thinking in APIs. Messages are not considered independent anymore. Groups and individuals who spent tremendous time and money defining data structures of individual messages within the banking industry now face a number of challenges.

First, even the simplest APIs organize messages in pairs, as in the request-response cycle of REST APIs.

Second, data structures turn out to be only part of API definition. Protocols start to matter, as financial world starts shuffling around big amounts of data. Forget SOAP, migrating clients between banks now requires binary protocols such as Protocol Buffers.

Regulation imposes near real-time requirements on communication, which demands knowledge of such nitty-gritty as push APIs or full-duplex APIs.

Suddenly, your API definition starts to look very technical and you skills have to match.

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