Lecture series
APIs and system integration for lenders
How a lender's systems talk to each other and to the outside world: what an API is, how customers share their own data through open banking, how lenders connect to payment systems, credit bureaus and identity services, how those connections are kept safe, and how they are run day to day. Five lessons, from the basic idea to running integrations.
5 of 5 lessons published. Lesson 1 is free to read.
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- 01What an API is and why lenders depend on themA lending platform is many systems, inside and outside the lender, that must exchange data within seconds. Application programming interfaces, or APIs, are how they do it. This lesson explains what an API is, where a lender uses them, what they replaced, and the risks that come with every connection.
- 02Open banking and open finance: data the customer chooses to shareOpen banking lets a customer direct the data a bank holds about them to another firm, such as a lender. This lesson explains what can be shared, who may receive it, what the customer's consent covers, how much data a recipient should take, and what shared data adds to a credit decision.
- 03Connecting to payment systems, credit bureaus and identity servicesThree outside connections sit on the path of almost every loan: the payment system that moves the money, the credit bureau that holds the borrower's history, and the identity service that says who the applicant is. This lesson explains what each connection exchanges, what its answers mean, and how a lender designs for answers that are late, repeated or missing.
- 04Keeping APIs safe: authentication, authorisation and consentEvery API call asks a lender's systems, or a bank's, to hand over data or move money. This lesson explains how a connection establishes who is calling, what the caller may do and whether the customer agreed, and how limits and monitoring catch what those checks miss.
- 05Running integrations: standards, versions, monitoring and partnersConnections are not built once and left alone. Standards change, versions are replaced, outside services slow down and partners come and go. This last lesson of the course explains how a lender keeps its integrations known, current, watched and governed.
Quiz and certificate 9 questions; those on lesson 1 are free to try. Read every published lesson and score 80% or more for a certificate of completion.
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