DLA: Peter, who are you and what can you tell us about why finAPI was founded?
Peter Hiekmann: My name is Peter Hiekmann, and I have been VP Sales at finAPI since January 2020, responsible for global sales activities. finAPI was founded by Dr Florian Haagen and Dr Martin Lacher back in 2008, long before the PSD2 directive was even considered. In the beginning, finAPI developed a personal finance management tool for banks based on the FinTS/HBCI standard. From 2016, the focus increasingly shifted to Open Banking and the development of a high-performance banking API that enables the seamless integration of financial data into software applications. With the
introduction of PSD2, finAPI was one of the first fintechs to receive the licence as an account information and payment initiation service by BaFin which is the competent NCA in Germany. This marked the next phase in finAPI’s development and enabled finAPI to become one of the key players in the field of Open Finance. Today, we enable access to extensive financial data and the analysis of this data for improved decision-making in credit decisions – also with the help of AI.
DLA: What exactly is the business model of finAPI?
Peter Hiekmann: finAPI offers a modular, flexible and scalable SaaS solution that connects checking, savings, credit cards and securities accounts via an Open Banking API and provides access to financial data. Other modules, such as KYC for customer identification, payments for initiating payments and data intelligence for providing insights from financial data, expand the portfolio and enable companies to optimize their financial processes. In the area of Digital Lending, finAPI provides support by analysing income, expenditure, and risk factors to assess creditworthiness, making lending processes more efficient and transparent.
DLA: Why was it important for you to become a member of our trade body?
Peter Hiekmann: The decision to become a member of DLA is based on our desire to actively shape the future of Digital Lending with Open Finance. In Germany, only a third of all loans are currently granted partially digitally while fully digital processes are still very rare. Through our membership, we hope to gain valuable insights into market developments and industry trends as well as the opportunity to drive and develop new industry standards for the digitalization of Fintech Lending. Our vision is to create smart, innovative solutions for all stakeholders. We are therefore particularly looking forward to
working together and exchanging ideas with members, industry experts and politicians.
DLA: FIDA is ante portas. What impact will this regulation have on the European ecosystem?
Peter Hiekmann: The Regulation for financial data access (FIDA) will have a major impact on the European ecosystem, much like PSD2 did when it opened access to banking data. finAPI saw first–hand how this fostered competition, improved user experience, and expanded access to financial products.
FIDA will mandate broader data sharing, including mortgages and credit agreements, savings and investments, crypto-assets, occupational pension schemes and personal pensions, insurance products (excluding life and health insurance), as well as data from creditworthiness assessments and non-sensitive KYC data. By providing access to more comprehensive customer data, FIDA will enable lenders to improve credit scoring and develop customized products. This will lead to more efficient processes, new business models, and stronger customer relationships. However, lenders must overcome data protection and technical implementation challenges to fully benefit from FIDA and gain a competitive edge.
DLA: Thank you very much for the interview, Peter. We are really happy to have finAPI on board now.
Foto credits: finAPI