E-Tranazct, Accounteer Partner Open Banking for Improved Service

Oluchi Chibuzor

E-Tranzact International Plc, one of Nigeria’s payment processor and Accounteer, a cloud accounting solutions provider have announced their partnerships with Open Banking Nigeria.

This would support the drive for adoption of non-partisan standard for stakeholders in Nigeria’s financial services ecosystem towards the provision of improved, customer-focused and tailored services.

In a statement issued to THISDAY in Lagos recently, the Chief Executive Officer of eTranzact, Niyi Toluwalope, said the partnership was a reflection of the company’s readiness to contribute to the advocacy efforts, provide technical review for API specifications, and directly engage other industry stakeholders for the collective good.

He also said the firm was committed to the implementation of its Application Programming Interface (APIs) and gateways in line with the Open Banking API standard.

According to him; “As a stakeholder within the Nigerian financial and payments ecosystem, we are aware of the opportunities for growth that come from innovation and financial inclusion. We are also aware of the challenges that fintechs face when integrating with banks using APIs, and we are excited about the efforts of the Open Technology Foundation.

“APIs have become the world’s most popular means of integrating software systems. However, the beauty of APIs is only appreciated when companies agree on common standards.” he said.

A similar instance where such standards have driven innovation and exceptional ease for consumers concerns debit card, which irrespective of the issuing institution, are universally accepted at ATM/ PoS terminals around the world because issuers abide by a global standard.

Commenting on the partnership, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Accounteer, Merijn Campsteyn, said, “Accounteer would like to contribute to the Open Banking community because we work with banks across different use cases and would love to leverage some of your APIs to drive more value for our customers,” said, the Chief Executive Officer of Accounteer.”

The Open Bank Nigeria representative, Ope Adeoye, said, they were delighted to have eTranzact and Accounteer join the group driving the adoption of unified API standards for financial services in Nigeria.

“Because among other benefits, they both would facilitate the attainment of a system that allows enhanced cross-industry collaborations which would immensely increase the number of product and service offerings available to consumers of financial services in the country,” he said.