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With the advent of many groundbreaking new technologies, app development has become as easy as pie in the last few years. However, FinTech app development is still the tedious process as it involves many complex modules which deal with the money and banks. In fact, there are some modules in all kind of the FinTech app which a team of developers cannot actualize without using some very sophisticated programs. These programs are generally called API. API (Application Programming Interface) is nothing but the communication protocol between different parts of the app or computer software to simplify the implementation of the software and app. Using an API, the developer can accomplish any task by writing minimum lines of code.
So, looking at its gravity, in this blog, I will list down top 5 APIs to develop FinTech app in the year 2020. But before moving forward, it is worth mentioning that not all APIs are free. You have to pay a flat fee or fee based on the usage.
BrainTree
The most fundamental module in any FinTech app is its payment module which facilitates the fund transfer from the user account to the merchant account. This kind of payment module is widely seen in not only FinTech apps, but in eCommerce apps also. This is a very complex module and without some API, cost of FinTech app development increases dramatically as developers have to manually establish the link between all banks, eWallet providers, and card issuing companies with FinTech app. So, better to use a payment gateway or processor. (In a mobile app or website, developers have to use both payment gateway and payment processor. But in the point of sale system, only payment processor is being used.)
BrainTree is the very popular payment processor/gateway which provides API to accept payment via debit/credit cards, eWallets and banks. All a developer needs to do is buy the API from BrainTree and add its code in the payment module of the FinTech app. Now, whenever a person adds his credit/debit card details in the mobile app and clicks enter, BrainTree validates that payment request and completes the transaction with the help of merchant bank, customer bank, and card issuing company. It is a very complex process in the backend, but in the frontend, it only makes users wait a few seconds until it completes the transaction.
BrainTree is not the free API. You have to pay a standard processing fee which is 2.9%+0.30 per transaction.
CardConnect
CardConnect is yet another payment processor/gateway providing company. Using CardConnect’s API, a FinTech app owner can accept payment via a wide range of the credit/debit cards as well as via eWallets and bank accounts. The reason why it has secured its place here is because of its very affordable pricing. Like another payment gateway/processor APIs which charge some percentage on every transaction, the CardConnect charges monthly. $9.95 is the monthly account fee, $10 monthly wireless data fee, $8.25 monthly PCI compliance fee and $19.95 monthly PCI non-compliance fee. Next day funding, certified PCI level 1, patented tokenization, recurring billing, online bill presentment, hosted payment page and fraud protection are the some most important features CardConnect offers.
In September 2019, there were 67 million people using Google Pay. Meaning, if a FinTech app is equipped with the payment module which lets people pay using their Google Pay account, the user experience of those 67 million people can be increased dramatically.
Luckily, Google provides API for its wallet. Thanks to this API, developers can painlessly integrate a Google Pay payment method and give a chance to Google Pay users pay from FinTech app seamlessly. Google Pay API comes with 2 different services. These services include Instant Buy and Wallet objects. Instant Buy service of the Google Pay API enables users to checkout very quickly as app lets users save card details and add just a security code to transfer money. Another service, Wallet Objects’ allows businesses to connect to millions of users and showcase loyalty programs, offer, and more. Business owners can also engage with customers through the always-available platform with location-based notifications, real-time updates and messaging.
Plaid
In many categories of FinTech apps, like P2P lending apps and trading apps, it is a requirement to validate the entered bank details of the customer to let him proceed further in the app. But to validate the bank details of the customers, developers should give official data of banks to the validation module as the input which is an impossible task due to many obvious reasons. So, the only option developers have is the Plaid API. It is known as the API for banking data!
Plaid gives tools to developers to build the bridge between banking infrastructure and FinTech mobile app to share the information and verify the data. Plaid API can retrieve transaction data including credit card, debit card, and savings accounts data.
Trulioo
This is a very revolutionary API which one should use in FinTech app if he wants to prevent the fraud. Using this API, a FinTech owner can know fraud, risk and financing crime of every customer. It mainly offers 3 services - electronic identity verification, document verification and data sources.
In electronic identity verification, it verifies customers based on the electrically inserted information of the customers. In document verification service, it verifies customer based on their submitted documents. It supports 3,500 different types of documents of almost all countries. And in data sources service, it gives access to over 400 trusted global data sources.
In the nutshell:
Developing a FinTech app without using any of the APIs costs more as it adds many more hours in development. So, the best decision a FinTech app owner can ever make is to rely on APIs for some most crucial modules of the FinTech app. In this blog, we’ve discussed 5 APIs which can reduce app development efforts, time window, and cost. There are many other APIs available in the market and so, it is always advisable to spend some to research and discuss it with FinTech app development company.
