Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
01:09:07 · Oliver Prill
[01:09:07] S12: So, just one little interesting stat. It takes now nineteen seconds to connect your Tide account to the... To Xero. So it's actually really fast and highly usable. But maybe coming back to the question you've asked. So Tide, you know, we've gone through quite a journey and we are now have 1% market share. So one in a 100 SMEs in The UK now bank with Tide. Most of them are primary accounts and the important thing to realize is that SMEs have very different needs. So while we, I completely agree with Carrie, APIs in a way are enabler. Right? I think you called it the basic infrastructure. It's really for challenges like ourselves to think through what are the different use cases that different SMEs need. So we have a basic one that goes live that basically pushes the transactions. And you know you can do exactly as as Carrie says. However, at Tide you can already classify all your payments. And so we will give an option that you can actually real time not only classify them in app, it will automatically preset your accounting and you can choose to push that through. You can already today on Tide basically take a copy of your receipt and attach it to a payment. Why not push that through? We will be able to do that with a new bank bank API. So and I think this is also the bigger answer I think to your question about open banking versus the bank feed that API that Xero has created. Open banking is very standard. It only allows certain things to be done. The the API that Xero has, and I'm sure it will get developed further, is very rich. And it is for us, right, as challengers to really think through what are the use cases that can take maximum advantage. I mean, there are business owners that just want to classify it in app and it to go through and there are others, you know, that, you know, want a more basic version of that.
01:11:05 · Sarah Kocianski, Megan Caywood
[01:11:05] S0: So some of these use cases, what are we talking here guys? Like give us some examples. [01:11:09] S5: Yeah, well I think probably to this point what's really important to note is that open APIs and the power of the API economy does not need to be regulated in order to be successful and effective because what we're doing is actually far beyond the requirements by this regulation. So when starling built out a full set of open APIs, it was actually with the intent of mirroring all of our internal functionality externally. So there's so many use cases beyond what the regulation permits. So compliance is an innovation, it's just a starting point. I think it's great that they're opening up these APIs in order to enable things like a new way of integrating between the CMA nine and accounting software to enable account aggregation functionality and that's super exciting. I think the true power of APIs actually goes far beyond just the minimum requirements of the legislation we see today.
01:11:09 · Megan Caywood, David M. Brear
[01:11:09] S5: Yeah, well I think probably to this point what's really important to note is that open APIs and the power of the API economy does not need to be regulated in order to be successful and effective because what we're doing is actually far beyond the requirements by this regulation. So when starling built out a full set of open APIs, it was actually with the intent of mirroring all of our internal functionality externally. So there's so many use cases beyond what the regulation permits. So compliance is an innovation, it's just a starting point. I think it's great that they're opening up these APIs in order to enable things like a new way of integrating between the CMA nine and accounting software to enable account aggregation functionality and that's super exciting. I think the true power of APIs actually goes far beyond just the minimum requirements of the legislation we see today. [01:11:58] S10: I think that's a really interesting point because like you say, it's taken the regulation to get the really big organizations to start that momentum, arguably you guys are kind of now leading where that standard actually goes, like you say, going far beyond it. Where do you sort of see this going? Because there's so much opportunity and obviously with what you guys in Starling have been doing on the retail space, you're no stranger to sort of marketplaces and obviously you used to work at Xero as well so you're no stranger to marketplaces but where do you see this going?
01:12:27 · Megan Caywood
[01:12:27] S5: Yeah, so from my perspective, the APIs are on the one hand the retail APIs so third parties can integrate into their product. So from read only account data up to instructing payments by the API. But then when we actually manifested this full set of APIs, what we found is a lot more use cases than we originally predicted. So on the one hand there's banks and fintechs and other companies who want to access payment schemes through our APIs. So as a fully licensed bank, can directly plug into faster payments and backs and everyone in this ecosystem who needs access has to go through one of those main points. So for us being a tech based bank, it's really easy to quickly and inexpensively grant that access. But others who want to manifest banking features from creating an account, direct debits, credits and all of these other features, we can make that available via an API as well. So I think the true platform is there's the power on the retail side for third parties to integrate. There's the power then from just opening up that infrastructure. And then on the other side, it's about the fintechs APIs because it's how do we make these third parties available for customers. So at Starling, it's about how do we take best in class savings and investments and mortgages and insurance and accounting and make that available and visible for customers inside the app. So I think there's many use cases beyond just kind of the five standard examples given by the CMA. Though that is a good starting point.
01:13:46 · Sarah Kocianski, Keri Gohman, Megan Caywood, David M. Brear
[01:13:46] S0: And and Carrie you were nodding along there. Is that is that what you envisage people using your your APIs? Is that what you know what you see them leading to? [01:13:52] S13: Exactly. You know the world is now a set of connected ecosystems. So Starling has their ecosystem. We've got an ecosystem that's relevant. Tide has their ecosystem and their solves and putting those pieces together are what really drives the next level of performance. And when you think about what is a platform, a fundamental definition of a platform is a place where you're sharing data, you're sharing content and others are innovating in ways you hadn't expected. When we started Xero, I'm sure Rod had this vision but probably but what we experienced was that there was innovation happening on the platform that we never could have imagined and solutions being created for small business owners and accountants that we couldn't have anticipated and that's the real definition of a platform and that's what the world's going to look like. A set of connected ecosystems working together to drive success for small business owners. [01:14:43] S5: 100% and just to build on that, think one of the interesting things is that a community of developers can innovate better and faster than any one company alone. Absolutely. So half the beauty of having open APIs is we don't have a monopoly on good ideas. That's right. So now, these other third parties can build these amazing services we hadn't even dreamed about from within Starling Bank. [01:15:01] S10: Yeah.
01:15:01 · David M. Brear, Sarah Kocianski, Megan Caywood, Oliver Prill
[01:15:01] S10: Yeah. [01:15:01] S0: Well, thank you so much guys. I'm actually gonna have to wrap up that first part of the show. I know it goes so quick. Thank you so much to our guests, Megan Kaywood and Oliver Pearl. Megan, where can people find out more about you if they don't already know where to find you? [01:15:14] S5: Twitter at Megan Kaywood or you can find us at starlingbank.com if you want to know more about Starling. [01:15:19] S0: Perfect. And, Oliver, how about you? [01:15:21] S12: Yeah. I would say tight.co. [01:15:23] S0: Perfect. Thank you so much for joining us. Let's have a big round of applause and a cheer for these guys. Feel free to take your drinks with you. [01:15:30] S12: Thank you. [01:15:34] S0: Oliver and Megan provided us with with such great insight and APIs and bank feeds are are super interesting and a really deep topic that everyone's been going into today. But people have been hearing about them all day and it can be a little bit heavy. So, we're gonna lighten the mood. I really hope you're ready for this because this is gonna be like cringe worthy. But we want you, our lovely accounting audience, to get involved and you have to be prepared to laugh at yourselves. Okay. We're not gonna pick any one person, but you have to be prepared to take a joke, please.