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Ozone API and Okay Tackle Compliance Demands

First published: 18/05/2021

updated: 21/10/2022

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Compliance is a generally complex topic that takes from both the budgets and resources of banks and financial institutions. When talking specifically about the compliance related to the Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), the mandated Open Banking interfaces, and Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), deliverables have proven to be the most significant undertakings.

Not All Challenges Are Equal

Such undertakings have kept many financial players busy for the past few years, and the results show mixed success. While some have been able to meet the “new” compliance regulations, others continue to postpone the job of delivering open banking APIs entirely. 

For instance, many new challenger banks and fintechs are technically savvy, enabling them to deliver impressive user experiences and applications, even if they are not so regulation-savvy. However, this lack of regulation-awareness may lead them to potentially overlook some crucial aspects of compliance. 

Conversely, many large or traditional banks have specific teams in place to tackle any compliance issues. Considering themselves to be regulation savvy, they are unlikely to overlook crucial compliance issues, but it makes the technical complexity of their existing legacy technology stacks significant. 

Compliance regulations can also pose new challenges for any banks or financial institutions working to make Open Banking a truly strategic channel. Such challenges include delivering:

  • APIs that comply with standards and perform exceptionally well,
  • A great user experience while still ensuring SCA,
  • A solid developer experience with easy onboarding, development tools, and consistent and high performing APIs,
  • And the tools needed to deal with both the complexity of consent management and the ongoing management of authorised third parties.

Ozone API and Okay Solution Overviews

Both Ozone API and Okay developed solutions that help banks and FIs deliver on compliance without the complexity. The synergy between the two platforms was evident from day one, leading to a partnership that offers a one-stop shop for simple and easy PSD2 compliance. 

Ozone API is a leading standards-based software that enables banks to deliver high-performing, standards-compliant, open APIs with all of the tools necessary to handle the complexity of Open Banking.

Okay is a PSD2 Compliant Strong Customer Authentication solution that uses decoupled authorisation to ensure a frictionless yet highly secured user journey. 

By combining Ozone and Okay, we help banks and financial institutions:

  • Understand mandatory requirements, implications, and how they have evolved.
  • Understand the specifics of different standards and orchestrate the complexity.
  • Have the know-how and experience to drive projects to successful completion and avoid pitfalls.
  • Mitigate the integration time, cost, and risks.
  • Accelerate the time to market.
  • Ensure ease of use from the issuer’s perspective while providing great UX.
  • Ensure the right level of security to prevent sophisticated frauds.   

The Partnership Raison D’être 

The topics of Open Banking and SCA each come with their own specific requirements. However, when combined, they enable the end-user (PSU) to have more control over their finances (this could be a consumer or a business).

When using a service based on Open Banking, such as a financial management app, accounting platform, or when simply making a payment, the provider of the service (otherwise known as a Third Party Provider or TPP) has to ask the PSU to provide consent to access their account. 

At this point, the end-user needs to authenticate themselves with his/her account provider (the bank, FI, or issuer) and then authorise the access. While the process of authenticating is simple in practice, delivering it well and in a compliant way is highly complex. This is when Okay and Ozone API come into play, as we each have developed best-in-class solutions to handle this complexity and enable easy and quick implementation.

Ultimately, Open Banking is a tremendous opportunity for innovation within the financial industry, and Strong Customer Authentication will be the leading process for protecting end-users at an unprecedented level. Both Ozone and Okay passionately believe that outstanding Open Banking APIs, combined with a secure yet frictionless authentication experience, will be a significant differentiator for banks. This combination doesn’t just tick the compliance box, but also delivers a long-term platform for growth and innovation for the compliance regulations of the future.

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