ICICI Bank launches Indias largest API Banking portal with nearly 250 APIs

ICICI Bank announces the launch of an API Banking portal, consisting the maximum number of virtual APIs  put together by any Indian bank. It enables partner companies to co- create innovative customer solutions in a frictionless manner and in a fraction of time usually taken for such integration, thereby significantly increasing their productivity. APIs are a set of instructions, which enable third party applications to communicate with the Bank’s various technology applications and collaborate to bring in new customer propositions.

The ‘ICICI Bank API Banking portal’, which consists of 250 APIs, enables developers of prospective partner companies across the globe to seamlessly sign up on it, create an application, select the application, test it out and get the sample code. With this, businesses, fintechs, corporates and e-commerce start-ups can easily partner with the Bank and co- create innovative customer solutions in a frictionless manner, all from the convenience of a single portal. The usage of ‘ICICI Bank API Banking Portal’ simplifies the process of digital collaboration for a partner company with the Bank and reduces the time taken to develop a business solution to a few days. This significantly raises productivity for partner companies. Typically, an API integration would take a few months.

The APIs are available across an array of categories including payments & collections like IMPS, UPI payment/collection, accounts & deposits and cards & loans. After testing the solution on the sandbox environment, developers can upgrade to the UAT environment for end to end real-time testing, post signing an NDA with the Bank. Additionally, the portal incorporates a detailed workflow for conveniently moving the API solution to the final production stage, thereby eliminating the hassles of manual to and fro.

The ‘ICICI Bank API Banking portal launch is a step towards bringing in the benefits of ‘Open Banking’ in the industry, which is regarded as a key enabler to drive speedy tie ups and digitisation in the country.

Speaking on the initiative, Mr. Anup Bagchi, Executive Director, ICICI Bank said “ICICI Bank has a legacy of leveraging new technology to bring in path-breaking solutions for the banking industry. The API Banking portal is yet another initiative in this direction. It is envisioned to be the gateway for several prospective partner companies to tie-up with the Bank in a quick and frictionless manner.

The portal offers the largest array of instant APIs by any bank in one single place. We believe that the ‘ICICI Bank API Banking Portal’, will help foster rapid innovation and co-creation with partner. It will also boost productivity for businesses, as they can now partner with us in a short span of time ranging from just a few weeks to few days as compared to the few months taken earlier. We are happy to note the encouraging interest in the partnering with the Bank, with hundreds of developers already cocreating on the portal.“

Here are the key benefits offered by ‘ICICI Bank API Banking portal’:

  • Largest range of APIs: Diverse range of nearly 250 APIs across financial and nonfinancial categories
  • Unique ‘One-Stop-Spot’ for integrating APIs: The portal caters to requirements of all types of entities – businesses, technology developers and aggregators and offers a single place for designing, testing and going live with their business solution, an industry first
  • Pares time, enhances productivity: Reduces the time taken by prospective partner companies and its developers to be able to integrate the APIs to their business solutions to just few weeks to few days thereby enhancing productivity
  • Convenient access to APIs: Makes ‘API Banking’ accessible to a large number of prospective partner companies and developers simultaneously and enables them to partner with the cutting edge technology offered by ICICI Bank
  • Detailed workflows for ease of integration: The portal offers a detailed step-by-step workflow to bring in ease and quick understanding of API working and scenarios for developers.

Example: ABC Pvt Ltd. is an e-commerce company, which aims to achieve efficiency in finance and accounting operations by automating it’s merchant payment process and bank reconciliation through their ERP system.

Here’s how it can do so, aided with the step-by-step workflow available on the ‘ICICI Bank API Banking Portal’:

  • Sign up on the ‘ICICI Bank API Banking Portal” at www.developer.icicibank.com
  • Select the ‘Required Category’ (for example “Business Banking”) category for the payment API
  • Review the documentation and test your application integration to virtual APIs
  • Request for upgrade to the UAT environment on portal and sign an NDA with the Bank
  • Request for upgrade to the live environment on portal

ABC Pvt. Ltd. can perform all the above steps from the convenience of a single portal. This eliminates the hassles of multiple follow-ups with the Bank as the detailed step-by-step workflow on the portal, enables the developer in understanding the functioning of the API with enhanced ease.

With this portal, ABC Pvt. Ltd. will thereby be able to achieve its business objective as it had planned, as it can develop a solution for automating its merchant payments and bank reconciliation, end to end, from the convenience of the ‘ICICI Bank API Banking Portal’. This, not just helps them to enhance productivity, but also enables them to save time and go live quickly with a fully-functional business solution in a matter of just a few weeks/days as compared to a typical API integration that takes few months.

Similarly, prospective partner companies from across the globe and their developers can build, test and go live with innovative business solutions around payments & collections, accounts & deposits and cards & loans using any API that fits their needs the most from nearly 250 available APIs. To know more about the portal, visit: https://developer.icicibank.com

About ICICI Bank:
ICICI Bank Ltd is a leading private sector bank in India. The Bank’s consolidated total assets stood at 12,88,190 crore repees at September 30, 2019. ICICI Bank’s subsidiaries include India’s leading private sector insurance, asset management and securities brokerage companies, and among the country’s largest private equity firms. It is present across 15 countries, including India.