2019 Integrated Report

Open Banking: ever more solutions for customers and partners

BNP Paribas is at the forefront of Open Innovation and Open Banking, and has rolled out a number of platforms across its business lines. Among them, Didid and the API Store are examples of this new approach and offer a wider range of services to customers and partners. More.

Open Banking offers a new approach to co-construction and is having a profound impact on the business models and organisation of the banking and insurance industries. Driven in particular by Europe’s Payment Services Directive (PSD2), the move to Open Banking is encouraging financial institutions to open up their information systems to authorised Third Party Providers (TPPs).

TOWARDS A NEW BANKING MODEL

The multitude of Open Banking initiatives launched by BNP Paribas’ businesses reflects the Group’s ambition to develop new banking models that enrich the customer experience, offer more solutions in a simple, secure way, and ensure the smoothest possible customer journey from beginning to end. This involves three different approaches: the development of a bank ”as a platform” (building and running platforms to develop and offer new services that go beyond financial products); a bank ”as a service” (offering new banking services using third-party distributors); and a ”marketplace” concept (connecting distributors or product manufacturers with customers). These represent three models for the future that together offer more solutions meeting the expectations of different types of customers (individuals, professionals and companies).

DIDID: OPEN BANKING FOR INDIVIDUAL CUSTOMERS

In 2019 BNP Paribas Fortis launched Didid, an application enabling everyone—not only the bank’s customers—to make their projects a reality. Users can outline their wishes, share them with others, save so as to finance them and, finally, have them come true. Everyone can connect their accounts at BNP Paribas Fortis, Hello bank! or Fintro to the app and ask families and friends to help them financially. This information-sharing is made possible by PSD2 and the opening of APIs⁽¹⁾. This Open Banking approach allows BNP Paribas Fortis to offer a variety of services to customers via an ecosystem of financial and non-financial service providers. Created following an international hackathon⁽²⁾ organised by BNP Paribas, Didid is an example of the opportunities presented by Open Banking and of the close collaboration developed with startups and fintechs using Open Innovation. “Our ability to conduct Open Innovation enables us to meet our goal of improving the customer experience,” says Michael Anseeuw, Head of Retail Banking at BNP Paribas Fortis.

THE API STORE: EXTENSIVE ACCESS TO THE GROUP’S SOLUTIONS

In 2019, thanks to close collaboration with startups and fintechs, BNP Paribas launched its API Store, the first Group-wide marketplace. Its aim is to offer partners and customers access to facilitate the integration of API solutions ”as a product” into their own services. This makes it possible, for example, to initiate payments or access a customer’s transaction history (with the agreement of the customer). Thanks to the APIs, information-sharing is standardised and simplified, and security requirements are met. Applications and websites can host third-party solutions while BNP Paribas’ solutions can be integrated directly into partner services and customer journeys. APIs facilitate both exchanges among the Group’s business lines as well as cooperation with startups, fintechs and partners so as to reinvent the customer experience, develop distribution capabilities and stimulate innovation.

(1) An API (Application Programming Interface) is a series of agreements or definitions that ensure that two systems can communicate and exchange data

(2) Event during which multidisciplinary teams meet for a fixed period of time to work collaboratively on computer programming projects.