Towards creating a collaborative ecosystem for enterprises, fintechs and app developers, Kotak Mahindra Bank on Friday launched its Open Banking platform.

The platform provides an open access window to fintechs and app developers to design customised offerings addressing specific customer needs in consultation with the bank.

The Open Banking platform enables Kotak to nurture strong relationships with fintechs and developers, the bank said in a statement.

The initiative is part of Kotak’s digital-first organic growth strategy that will be driven by its ABCD charter that focuses on -- AI enriched App, Biometric enabled Branch, Context enhanced Customer Experience and Data empowered Design.

The platform is powered by a developer portal which will make Kotak’s application programming interfaces (APIs) available to fintechs and developers.

This collaboration will help the bank accelerate the pace of innovation and develop improved customer-centric solutions, the bank said.

"The platform offers Kotak’s APIs for lending and payment products. Fintechs and developers have to register their details on the portal before gaining access to the APIs. Within a short period of the portal’s launch for fintechs and other startups, it has gone live with more than 30 partners in the lending and payments segment, and over 40 developers are presently going through the integration process," the bank added.

“The API economy will shape the future and will form the backbone of a growing digital ecosystem," said Aruna Rao, senior executive vice president and group chief technology officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The API Manager provides a technical and governance framework to securely enable the exponentially expanding API world, Rao said, adding that it facilitates collaboration between banks, merchants and the developer community to support rapid innovation.

Kotak’s Open Banking platform is designed to foster collaboration and innovation, and address real customer issues by creating frictionless and convenient products and services, said Deepak Sharma, chief digital officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Kotak has been at the forefront of collaborative efforts with fintech companies, resulting in first-of-its-kind solutions such as 811, Kotak Remit and blockchain-enabled trade finance products, the banks said.

First Published:Nov 23, 2018 3:25 PM IST