The Green Sheet Online Edition
September 9, 2020 • 20:09:02
Readers Speak: How open banking will affect business security considerations
Clayton Weir, chief strategy officer at FISPAN, a contextual banking platform, sent us the following perspective on the need for API security:
"With open banking, banks will allow third parties access to their application programming interfaces (APIs) to share financial information needed to develop custom apps and services. The integrated networks allow data to flow between banks and internal accounting teams which is crucial for streamlining recurring payment and billing processes, but like any technology, can present challenges for organizations not well prepared.
"According to API Security a Top Concern for Cybersecurity in 2020 by Ericka Chickowski on the Security Boulevard website, API traffic now makes up 83 percent of web traffic today. So while the tech is increasingly here to stay, organizations that don't implement proper security protocols will find themselves at risk of API-based attacks as the technology is increasingly embedded in digital services. But any new challenge also presents an opportunity.
"Open banking offers new opportunities for the entire financial services industry. Whether it's improving customer experiences through faster transactions or improving accounting team outputs by cutting down lengthy deposit processes, the tech is here to stay. Securing any system requires initial security audits and extended testing must be part of any ecosystem that relies on API-empowered data sharing.
"At a practical level open banking is also introducing new authentication and authorization techniques that actually make banking data and banking actions (making large payments) much safer, secure and visible than they were before."
The growing prominence of APIs
We wish to thank Clayton Weir for sharing his insights on this topic. The article he referred to above can be found at https://securityboulevard.com/2020/01/api-security-a-top-concern-for-cybersecurity-in-2020/.
What roles do APIs play in your business? Is API security a top concern for your business this year? If so why is that, and what are you doing to address it? Please send your thoughts on this or other topics that are top of mind for your business to greensheet@greensheet.com. 
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