Backbase and Salt Edge Partner to Simplify Open Banking Compliance and Growth

• By partnering up, Backbase and Salt Edge help banks with open banking compliance and monetise new opportunities.
• The partnership allows banks to smoothly integrate security and regulatory compliance into their solutions without an exorbitant upfront cost of development.

Backbase, which specialises in engagement banking, has partnered with Salt Edge, an operator of open banking solutions, to help banks with an uncomplicated compliance approach and simultaneously create new sources of revenue. This initiative thus seeks to demystify the open banking concept and help financial institutions integrate secure-compliant solutions away from the usual heavy costs.

A Gentle Route to Open Banking Compliance

For many banks, complying with open banking regulations can be very challenging. The authentication mechanisms have to be built using secure connections between TPPs and bank applications, which are expensive: a bank could spend several million in IT resources alone with proper justification. 

Banks united with Backbase can now mend compliance solutions with Salt Edge directly through the Backbase Marketplace, thanks to a new agreement between Backbase and Salt Edge. Therefore, they save a lot of time and money by no longer investing considerably in system development and maintenance.

“This partnership marks a significant step in our mission to empower banks to re-architect banking around the customer,” said Roland Booijen, general manager of ecosystems at Backbase. “By collaborating with Salt Edge, we enable banks to not only comply with open banking regulations but also monetise their APIs and offer seamless digital experiences to their customers.”

Making Compliance into a Competitive Advantage

While regulatory compliance generally has an assumed stigma of being a necessary evil, Backbase and Salt Edge are proving otherwise. Using Salt Edge’s compliance and API aggregation know-how, banks can do much more than comply—they can generate revenue with their API backbones.

Through secure transport channels with Third Party Providers (TPPs), banks can provide other ancillary services for open banking business models. In this way, financial institutions can even be forecasters, where compliance aids innovation rather than being a simple formality.

“Regulatory compliance should not be a bottleneck for banks but rather a catalyst for growth and innovation,” added Iulian Mitrea, head of partner ecosystem at Salt Edge. “By partnering with Backbase, we are equipping financial institutions with the tools they need to effortlessly thrive in the evolving open banking landscape.”

A Store Solution of the Future for Banks

With the ever-changing environment of open banking, banks will be racing against time to keep themselves up to speed in the competition. This is where having a partnership becomes useful, as it allows financial institutions to go beyond compliance with regulations, using it as a stepping stone. Part of a seamless and low-cost compliance solution, banks may now focus on what matters and can be out there offering better digital experiences for their clients and eventually driving the success of the company for the foreseeable future.