National Australia Bank is set to become the first major Australian bank to launch an Application Programming Interface Developer Portal.
Application Programming Interfaces (API), allow the exposure of new and existing functionality from core systems within organisations. This in turn enables others (internal or external - depending on access) to place these features in their websites or mobile apps.
The portal, which will go live before Christmas, will make selected National Australia Bank (NAB) API’s publicly available to allow third party developers to connect to select sets of NAB data.
The developer portal will begin as a closed beta with NAB approving a small number of developers to take part in the initial concept, before running an open beta more broadly early next year.
The platform will start with two NAB APIs which will host data relating to NAB branch and ATM locations and NAB foreign exchange rates.
Developers approved to take part in the beta will be able to plug into the NAB data for testing and possible integration to their own systems (websites or mobile apps, etc).
“We are collaborating with a number of partners to both provide and receive data leveraging API technology including Xero, MYOB and VISA. We want to keep building our ecosystem with likeminded organisations to allow us opportunities to innovate and improve our experiences for customers,» said Antony Cahill (pictured above) NAB Chief Operating Officer.
NAB started using API technology in 2013 with the NAB Flik product (now Pay to Mobile in the new NAB mobile banking app) and has continued to evolve, with the new mobile banking platform rebuilt on strategic API architecture and the establishment of numerous partnerships to both provide and receive data using APIs.