From the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of sectors like Travel, Retail, SAAS, etc expanding themselves into financial services.

Well, Banking and Fintech is a collaboration that is still very new in the Indian economy. The new normal has definitely shaken up the world and it has impacted the traditional banking system. From visiting a branch to opening an account online has been a major revamp in the industry – to be honest, this is just the start.

New Fintechs every day are disrupting the old traditional ways of banking and challenging our generation to think something out of the box now and then.

BaaS is a vast topic and the meaning of this is changing as per the ask of the end customer every day. Let’s try addressing the details one by one.

What is BaaS? 

In layman’s terms – BaaS is a process that allows fintechs and third parties to connect with banks via APIs. From opening an account to creating FD’s, etc everything can be done with the help of BaaS. 

Offering these services to an end customer is not so easy and requires a lot more regulatory processes to be in place. For eg: issuing prepaid cards – requires PPI license, giving credit to customers – requires NBFC license, and so on and so forth.

How does this work?

Banks obviously have licenses to offer various services, so they expose their systems to BaaS providers and these providers in return pay to banks for using their services. BaaS will allow businesses to fit the financial technologies and then the businesses will provide new solutions to end customers as per their needs and requirements.

Generally, the BaaS model begins with Fintechs, banks or Third party Providers paying fees to the BaaS platform. The financial institutions will open up their APIs to TPPs, thereby giving permission to access the systems and information required to build new banking products or offer white label banking services. 

Let’s understand how this is different from old traditional ways of banking

In today’s era, opening an account is just a matter of a few minutes compared to the days where opening a bank account required walking to the branch. 

Today, if someone has to send money to their children/relatives sitting abroad – trust me, it’s not a task anymore. Of course, this requires the regulatory practices to be in place, however, there are fintechs who are supporting this while simultaneously abiding by the regulatory guidelines.

To change the entire structure in the back end and front end for banks is not an easy task and requires a lot of investment. In this case, the banks approach BaaS or Tech service providers to plug in the system and provide end-to-end services to the customer. 

Future of BaaS

Everyday the financial industry is coming across a new development, the landscape is changing rapidly. Banks, Fintechs and businesses are coming across new requirements frequently. Reaching out to new segments of customers and solving a problem statement is also a new revenue stream for the banks as well as fintechs. 

Banks teaming up with the service providers and reaching out to end customers for providing innovative solutions is much required. APIs and applications play a major role in bringing these changes and need to be developed in a responsible way to provide long-term efficiency and scalability.

Today, banks issue various prepaid instruments like prepaid cards, digital wallets, gift cards, fastags, etc. that are mandated to comply with certain regulations, as prescribed by the regulator in its master directions. At the same time, regulated entities carry out remittances, issue forex, international debit and international credit cards governed by tax laws. Any issuer providing multiple types of instruments, or partnering with multiple technology service providers is expected to follow these regulations and laws. The prepaid instrument regulations are meant to monitor/manage the level of prepaid instrument loading and usage at an individual customer level. The tax laws focus on collecting tax at source (TCS). These compliances demand a centralised repository that takes care of the following:

Uniquely identifying the customer and rolling up based on personally identifiable information (PII) sought from the customer at the time of onboarding.

Classifying customers based on their risk-profile categorisation.

Maintaining personalised limits at the customer level.

Controlling loading and usage at the issuer level.

Intimating the Bank / Regulated Entity on TCS applicability and rates.

This is precisely what the Centralised System of Records or C-SOR offers. A centralised System of Records (C-SOR) is a centrally managed repository that maintains customer-level records for a range of instruments issued by technology service providers (TSP) on behalf of the issuer. All customer actions undertaken by the TSP are sent to C-SOR for verification and validation. This means that only C-SOR-validated customer actions are treated as valid. Given below are a few scenarios that illustrate how the Centralised System of Records could be used by issuers in the context of various businesses they undertake.

Prepaid Cards: Bank and Non-bank PPI issuers issue prepaid cards through multiple TSPs. To maintain the balances and daily/monthly/yearly transactions allowed across transaction types and KYC types, be it full KYC or small PPI, the issuing entity should be employing a centralised system of records. For instance, a customer who was onboarded via both TSP1 and TSP2 will be identified as a single customer in the C-SOR system and the usage data should be managed accordingly.

Payments Bank: Payments Bank Savings Account balances plus balances contained in PPI or other internal wallets should not cross 2 Lakh INR at EOD. The differential should be swept into its partner Scheduled Commercial Bank’s deposit account. CSOR makes sure that the aggregate balance across applicable instruments doesn’t cross the prescribed limit.

LRS Limit Maintenance: Limits under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (250,000 USD in a fiscal year) can be maintained by the C-SOR based on usage across instruments like Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Remittance Accounts and Forex Cards. The issuer can also be notified about usage that affects the TCS charged at a customer level.

CARD91 has built a robust centralised system of records as an API-led solution which lets issuers monitor its registered customers on a real-time basis. For more information, please reach out to sales@card91.io.

Written by Praveen Varghese, Product Manager, CARD91.

In today’s fast-paced world, credit cards have become an integral part of our financial landscape, offering convenience, security, and flexibility for seamless transactions both online and offline. However, credit cards go beyond mere payments, providing a range of value-added services that enhance the overall user experience. One such service gaining prominence is the Reward Loyalty Program.

Reward Loyalty Programs incentivize cardholders for their spending habits and loyalty to a particular credit card issuer. These programs offer various benefits, including differential reward points, closed-loop EMI programs, meta-data engines, and cardholder-defined actions, significantly enhancing the cardholder’s experience.

Differential Rewards Points:

A key feature of Reward Loyalty Programs is the differential rewards points system, allowing credit card issuers to offer rewards based on cardholders’ spending patterns. This feature goes beyond Merchant Category Codes (MCC) or Transaction Identification (TID), allowing customization based on parameters such as pin code, duration, or specific MCC for particular dates. For instance, cardholders may receive 5x reward points during special occasions like birthdays or wedding anniversaries, adding a personalized touch to the rewards program.

Meta Data Engine:

The Meta Data Engine enhances portfolio management for credit card issuers by efficiently processing vast amounts of data for better decision-making. This tool empowers portfolio and product teams to collaborate effectively, enabling them to identify new opportunities and convert potential customers into cardholders.

Card Holder Defined Actions:

The Card Holder Defined Actions feature empowers cardholders to take various actions through mobile applications, such as increasing credit limits or using reward points as per their preferences. Integration with aggregator EUROP Assistance enables cardholders to redeem rewards across various industries and companies, enhancing flexibility and utility.

In conclusion, Reward Loyalty Programs in credit cards offer a holistic approach to enhancing the cardholder experience, particularly appealing to the millennial demographic. By offering personalized rewards, affordability through EMI options, efficient data management, and user-defined actions, credit card issuers can differentiate themselves and add significant value to their customers’ financial journeys, aligning with the evolving preferences of the millennial generation.

Authored by Deepak Bhatt, Director of Sales at CARD91

Over the past decade, technology has shown tremendous impact in many industries. With the change of customer behaviour and the emergence of regulatory compliances, the landscape of the financial industry is changing. Customers are demanding a multi- and cross-channel experience, which is real-time as well as available round the clock. Thus, Banks are changing their approach from traditional product-centric to a customer-centric approach. This has resulted in banks looking for new age solutions to redefine customer experience. Earlier if a customer wanted to send money abroad, then they might have to go to the bank or financial institution branch and it took 2-3 days to get funds credited to the receiver’s account but now money can be transferred at any time by just a few clicks using a mobile phone.

Consumer’s appetite has been ever increasing for high-end digital experiences including seamless and easy accessibility of all financial products at their fingertips. Responding to these demands, Fintechs are building revolutionary financial products and experiences by using APIs to quickly deploy a suite of advanced financial services and products.

What is an API and how does it work?

API stands for an Application Programming Interface. It’s a digital interface which acts as an intermediary to allow two different systems to talk to each other. 

A very prominent example of API usage which most of us have seen on many websites nowadays – “log-in using Google/Facebook/Twitter”. With just one click we automatically login on to the website or app but have you ever wondered how it works

It looks very easy and simple for users. Every time the application loads, it uses the API to check whether the user is already logged in using any social media platform. If not, when the user clicks the “Log-in Using google” button, a pop-up opens where the user is asked for confirmation to log in with the selected google profile. After the confirmation, the API interacts with the google system and provides the application with identification information to provide auto-login.

Digitalisation has fastened the transformation of the banking industry globally in the last few years. APIs are playing a very important role in the field of payments, Peer to peer management, Insurance, trading and many more. Fintech APIs are creating financial products and services faster and in more cost-effective than ever before. Now Banks, financial institutions and merchants can easily connect with third-party service providers and expand their products and services very quickly. Online shopping of groceries and household goods is a new trend all over the world, merchants are providing seamless payment experience with various payment methods to customers. Customers can easily transfer funds, make purchases, buy insurance, take loans and perform personal banking tasks on the go.

In short, APIs have transformed Financial institutions and Banks as a platform that offer customer-centric products and fill the gaps of legacy banking practices.

Fintech APIs provide access to data among the parties involved in financial transactions, including banks, third-party providers, websites and consumers.

Nowadays a new concept of Open APIs is on the rise. Open APIs allows third-party service providers to access the data and services of an organization in a controlled environment. It provides opportunities to create new products and adds new functionality to its core offering. 

Benefits of Fintech APIs 

• Real-Time Access: APIs have achieved real-time money transfer globally with minimal effort and are available to customers 24/7. APIs are changing how we interact with the world, and all these actions happen in real-time.

• Revenue Opportunity: Earlier banks were quite secretive about their client information due to security concerns. With APIs, the financial institutions can provide easy accessibility of big data which can help them in creating highly personalized financial services and enhance the decision capabilities of the business. 

• Cost-effectiveness: Instead of spending high cost in developing the system from scratch, the financial institutions can use these Fintech APIs and significantly reduce development costs.

• Accelerated time to market: By using fintech APIs Financial institutions can spend more time and resources to focus on innovation instead of repetitive development tasks. Create fully functional digital services within days instead of months.

To compete with the currency digitalisation banks and financial institutions need to transform their existing core banking services using Fintech APIs. Fintech APIs help in bridging the existing legacy gap between the financial institutions and customer’s requirements. Features and functions from legacy applications can be easily pulled out and combined into processes that authorised users and other applications can access from anywhere, anytime.