The demand for real-time data and transaction processing is driving a record number of Bank of America (BofA) business clients to adopt application programming interfaces (APIs).
Over the last 12 months, BofA has seen a 51% increase in clients using APIs, with growth driven by innovations that have simplified onboarding and accelerated speed to transact.
“CFOs face enormous pressure to know their exposure and cash position at any given time,” said Tom Durkin, head of CashPro® in global payments solutions (GPS) at Bank of America. “APIs play a strategic role in positioning companies to act on information quickly, in a fully automated and secure manner.”
The APIs are available via CashPro, BofA’s digital banking platform accessed by 40,000 companies. Additionally, many treasury management systems (TMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers also host CashPro APIs. This network of 55 TMS and ERPs has helped fuel the surge in API adoption. In fact, 78% of clients using CashPro APIs are doing so through one of the network participants.
Jennifer Jewett, controller at Jetcraft Corporation, explains the impact of CashPro APIs on her organisation: "As our company has grown globally, it’s no longer practical to manually process and consolidate reports. I need to be able to respond to questions like ‘what’s my cash balance?’ almost immediately. CashPro APIs is the ideal solution—it’s brought automation to our treasury and increased efficiency for my team."
By making business easier, the CashPro Developer Studio is also driving growth by transforming and dramatically speeding up the API onboarding experience. For instance, within one week, clients can go live with current day reporting, as well as previous day reporting across all their accounts.
“The turnkey experience we’ve created through the CashPro API network and the CashPro Developer Studio has been transformative,” said Maureen Jarvis, head of business banking GPS, at BofA. “Smaller companies are able to get the same strategic benefit of APIs as their larger peers.”
Examples of how CashPro APIs are being used around the world for payment transactions include:
• Nonprofit organisations are sending emergency relief payments to people in need via Zelle, ACH, debit cards and digital wallets.
• Healthcare and insurance companies are leveraging APIs to replace checks with Zelle, ACH and RTP® transactions, expediting reimbursement payments and residential mortgage transactions.
• Companies operating in Brazil are using APIs to process 600,000 Boletos every month.
• A chain of convenience stores and truck stops has automated payments to their drivers, replacing paper checks with instant payments made via Zelle upon notice of delivery of goods.
• Companies in Europe are leveraging APIs for SEPA instant credit transfers to make same-day payments.
Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker