Open Banking – Creating customer value and business opportunities

Handelsbanken has a strong presence wherever we have our operations, in the form of both personal meetings and digital services. 

New regulations and new technology generate increased openness and data sharing. This opens opportunities to work with other parties to strengthen our local and digital presence, thus generating customer benefit and new types of offerings. We develop these collaborations based on our in-depth knowledge of our customers’ expectations.

We aim to find partners that share our values of commitment, customer care, simplicity and trust. Together, we can deliver long-term value to our customers. Therefore, it is important that we, as always, have security as our top priority, continually developing and refining our security solutions.

What is Open Banking?

Open Banking is an ecosystem for financial services where technology leads the way. Within it, key parties can access the banks' customer data and services (through APIs) to build applications that our customers can benefit from.

In addition, Open Banking allows us as a bank, through partnerships, to launch innovative services for our customers more efficiently.

What is an API?

The term API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface. It is a widely used software intermediary that allows applications to talk to each other so that information can be shared over a network. You can think of APIs as digital building blocks that receive requests and send responses, allowing data to be transferred safely and securely.

Due to PSD2 (the revised Payment Services Directive 2), Open Banking APIs now open a world of possibilities for our customers and the financial services available to them via Third Party Providers (TPPs).

Whilst APIs are not new in the world of tech, they are new in terms of banking and thanks to the Open Banking ecosystem, they are now widely offered across banks.