NACHA’s API Standardization Industry Group (ASIG) and Accenture have joined forces to put together a community of application program interface (API) resources to support API standardization across the U.S. payments system.

By providing a wide variety of resources related to APIs, such as developer tools, training materials, product blogs, articles and code samples, the joint venture aims to help the financial services industry develop solutions through collaboration. As U.S. financial services firms work to improve the digital experience for their corporate customers, APIs will become increasingly important.

ASIG identified 16 APIs late last year that it sees having an immediate impact on the payments ecosystem and the financial services industry. ASIG and Accenture focused on five of those APIs that they believe will help reduce risk, drive efficiencies and improve security. The API resource community will begin by supporting these five APIs and will grow to include more.

“To foster adoption, drive innovation and simplify integration of the APIs we’ve identified, we felt it was critical to offer the payments ecosystem tools to educate, develop, test and provide feedback,” said George Throckmorton, managing director for NACHA. “By partnering with Accenture, we’re able to offer business and technical resources via a digitally enabled platform with all the tools needed for successful deployment of APIs.”

Conrad Sheehan, a managing director in Accenture’s Payments practice, added that this resource will help the industry pivot toward more open and interoperable banking. “This initiative will support next-generation market innovation, new operating efficiencies for industry participants and better experiences for retail, corporate and internal industry users,” he said.

Magnus Carlsson, AFP's manager of treasury and payments noted that API technology is making more and more inroads in the payments industry, but standardization is a key challenge. "This kind of collaboration is crucial for the development of solid standards," he said.

ASIG and Accenture plan to utilize a number of forums to grow its community. The first will be the upcoming ASIG Meeting on February 28 in San Francisco, which is part of the NACHA Payments Innovation Alliance meeting.