Oracle Service API3 Partners With the Open Banking Project, Plans to Connect 400 Banking APIs to Blockchain

On Monday, the oracle provider API3 announced a ten-year partnership with the Open Bank Project in order to connect more than 400 banking APIs to blockchain smart contracts using API3’s Airnode. The collaboration between API3 and the Open Bank Project aims to bridge conventional banking with blockchains and Web 3.0 applications.

API3 DAO Partners With the Open Banking Project Connecting Over 400 Banking APIs to Blockchain

During the last few months, there’s been greater interest in oracle providers like Chainlink, Band Protocol, API3, and DIA. Recently, Bitcoin.com’s news reported on a number of oracle-based tokens gathering two-digit gains.

Further, our newsdesk covered how Chainlink’s modular oracle for the Substrate framework aims to empower developers and decentralized finance (defi) applications with trusted off-chain information.

On April 19, API3, the project that claims to provide “decentrally governed and quantifiably secure data feeds,” revealed a partnership with the Open Bank Project (OBP). The API3 project is a DAO-governed protocol and the union with OBP will be for ten years. The project will provide over 400 banking APIs the ability to access Airnode, an open-source gateway developed by API3.

Essentially, OBP is an organization that promotes the standard of providing transparent and secure banking API access to third-party providers. In 2007, EU lawmakers made it so all banks must comply with open banking API standards.

Third-Party Dapp Developers Can Begin Rapidly Prototyping Blockchain Solutions, Traditional Finance and Crypto Converge

The alliance will use Airnode, a first-party oracle so “third-party decentralized application developers with the opportunity [can] begin rapidly prototyping blockchain solutions powered by Open Banking data.”

“We are absolutely thrilled to work with API3 on enabling Open Banking on the blockchain,” the Open Bank Project’s CEO Simon Redfern said during the announcement. “Hopefully, this will serve as a framework for financial regulators to explore and create new standards and set the foundation for the blockchain economy to converge with banking-based digital offerings.”

Use cases for leveraging the Open Banking standards with blockchain technology are endless as decentralized solutions for data verification are considered necessary on a global scale.

Banks and third parties can cohesively work together without needing as much trust as they did prior to distributed ledger tech. The two partners envision “data marketplaces and unions enabling banking customers to monetize their private financial data.”

“API3 is incredibly excited to see the blockchain industry begin to merge with Open Banking, and we can’t wait to see the innovative solutions that will grow out of this,” Heikki Vänttinen the cofounder of API3 remarked. “Now that traditional finance and crypto are converging, we hope this newfound connectivity between the two will build a foundation for the future of a digital banking experience inclusive of blockchain-enabled systems like defi,” the API3 cofounder concluded.