The API Exchange (APIX) is an online open-architecture program launched by the AEAN Financial Information Network (AFIN), an organization that supports financial innovation on a global scale. It allows financial institutions and FinTech firms to connect through a globally curated marketplace to engage in collaborative experiments in a sandbox alongside other financial industry participants to integrate and test solutions together in the cloud.
What fuels the demand for this innovation? Financial markets are rapidly evolving in response to an environment that is defined by digital transactions, changing the way consumers save, borrow, pay, and lend. In underdeveloped and unbanked regions around the globe, this shift creates problems in financial accessibility and growth for the world’s most underserved populations. Disruptive technologies such as APIX are delivering greater efficiency in banking that is reflective of the ever-changing financial landscape.
APIX is part of an effort to bring together an ecosystem of participants crowdsourcing their collective brainpower to connect, scale and fund financial innovation. Through the APIX platform, Fintechs and financial institutions are engaging in meaningful dialogue to promote digital innovation and empower financial inclusion, while fostering safe testing and experimentation with digital solutions.
The API Exchange (APIX) is making significant contributions to the global economy:
- Lead the way. Virtusa was tapped by AFIN to lead a team to develop and operate APIX. In a collaboration with Percipient, a date integration and virtualization platform, and Fidor, a digital banking solution provider, they plan to leverage the latest and often disruptive technologies, such as APIX to solve insufficient financial inclusion.
- Innovate and transform. India is poised to transition into a fully functioning digital economy, supported by a government initiative to promote digital literacy. To achieve that goal, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), is utilizing APIX to work with FinTechs and start-ups to innovate a dynamic and disruptive payment space.
- Facilitate growth in unbanked populations.Utilizing APIX, Fintech Galaxy is part of an initiative to ensure banks, financial institutions, regulators, and policy makers collaborate more closely to help spur much needed growth in the undeveloped, unbanked populations of the African and MENA regions.
- Build back global economies. The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and MetLife Foundation through the i3 Program, in partnership with the Singapore FinTech Festival, launched the COVID-19 Financial Health Challenge on APIX. As financial disruption from the global pandemic continues, this initiative strives to identify innovative solutions and business models to build healthy financial lives for low- and middle-income consumers around the world.