Mountain View, CA, Aug. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Banks and financial institutions are racing to meet the January 2018 deadline for complying with the European Union’s second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). However, in their rush to provide the data sharing and identity protections required by PSD2, these organizations are often missing opportunities to lay the foundation for new digital businesses enabled by the directive. Now, with today’s launch of its WSO2 Open Banking solution, WSO2 is empowering financial firms to comply with PSD2 while setting the stage for digital transformation that will drive new business models and revenue streams.
Speeding PSD2 Compliance
The 100% open source WSO2 Open Banking combines into one integrated solution the proven technology and processes to implement a flexible system for quickly complying with PSD2. Designed specifically for financial institutions, it is built on the WSO2 API management platform featuring:
- Comprehensive API management functionality from WSO2 API Manager—which is used by leading Global 1000 companies managing up to billions of API calls per day—addresses PSD2 requirements for opening pre-defined sets of data to third parties.
- Robust identity and access management (IAM) with advanced multi-factor authentication capabilities from WSO2 Identity Server—used by organizations to manage up to 3 billion user identities—meets PSD2 requirements for protecting data and user identities.
- Extensive API monitoring plus real-time and predictive analytics functionality from WSO2 Data Analytics Server track performance, API availability, and usage trends, among others, as well as send alerts about abnormal patterns.
- Comprehensive data and services integration capabilities from WSO2 Enterprise Integrator and a range of connectors facilitate seamless integration with financial firms’ existing systems.
Significantly, all the software components of the WSO2 API management platform are built on the same core framework and are designed to work together from the start. This eliminates the product integration efforts required with other vendors’ PSD2 solutions, speeding time to market. Moreover, WSO2 Open Banking can run on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment, giving financial institutions maximum deployment flexibility.
WSO2 Open Banking also incorporates pre-defined API specifications designed to comply with PSD2. Based on research into the most effective openly available specs, they help to streamline the implementation process and get to market faster. Additionally, WSO2 Open Banking includes professional services from experts who have successfully implemented solutions at some of the world’s largest financial institutions.
Providing a Platform for Banks’ Digital Transformation
Going beyond PSD2 compliance, financial institutions have a foundation on which to create new digital businesses with WSO2 Open Banking. For example, WSO2 offers the capabilities for banks to capitalize on the trust they have built with customers and become payment initiation service providers (PISPs) and account information service providers (AISPs). These include:
- API integration to facilitate the integration of APIs from several third-party providers.
- Federated user authentication with trusted banks under disparate identity protocols.
- Fraud detection to detect and alert anomalies in payment initiation transactions.
- API-specific and data-specific dashboards that provide different views of consolidated financial data.
Additionally, WSO2 provides the platform for banks to take advantage of data-driven opportunities created by PSD2. Among these opportunities are:
- A web and mobile app suite that enables customer-centric digital services.
- An insight sales application that provides capabilities to transform the customer data repository into business insights.
- Extensive analytics to collate data from various APIs and create products and services for insight selling.
“PSD2 represents a hurdle to banks continuing their ability to conduct financial transactions in Europe in 2018 and beyond. At the same time, the secure data sharing required opens the door to a range of new digital business opportunities,” said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, WSO2 founder, CEO, and chief architect. “With the launch of WSO2 Open Banking, we are empowering financial firms to clear the PSD2 compliance hurdle quickly and then build on a proven platform to create new data-driven services that strengthen customer engagement, generate new revenue streams, and accelerate growth.”
Webinar on Digital Transformation Through PSD2
A webinar, “WSO2 Open Banking: Digital Transformation Through PSD2,” is being held today, August 3, 2017, at 10:00 am GMT to provide additional detail. Professionals can participate in the webinar or view it on demand by visiting http://wso2.com/library/webinars/2017/08/wso2-open-banking-digital-transformation-through-psd2.
Led by WSO2 Senior Technical Lead Seshika Fernando, the session will feature a demo of WSO2 Open Banking, as well as examine:
- The role of PSD2 in redefining banking as we know it.
- The core capabilities of WSO2 Open Banking, including the WSO2 API management platform that enables banks to open APIs in a secure and controlled manner.
- How WSO2 Open Banking can support financial firms’ technology infrastructure for capabilities beyond banking.
Availability
WSO2 Open Banking is available now as a fully open source solution released under the Apache License 2.0. It can be deployed as a software download that runs directly on servers, on top of a private platform as a service (PaaS), or on top of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), such as Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2), Linux Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM), and VMware ESX. Additionally, customers can choose to have WSO2 host the software through WSO2 Managed Cloud hosted services. For more information on features, functionality, pricing, and how to set up a test solution, visit http://wso2.com/solutions/financial/open-banking.
About WSO2
WSO2 uniquely increases the agility of digital businesses and enterprises engaging in a digital transformation. It offers the only completely integrated enterprise platform that enables businesses to build, integrate, manage, secure and analyze their APIs, applications, and Web services—on-premises, in the cloud, on mobile devices, and across the Internet of Things. Leading enterprise customers worldwide rely on WSO2’s award-winning 100% open source platform and its robust performance and governance for their mission-critical applications. Today, these businesses represent nearly every sector: health, financial, retail, logistics, manufacturing, travel, technology, telecom and more. Visit http://wso2.com to learn more, or check out the WSO2 community on the WSO2 Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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