The Hong Kong Monetary Authority published the Open Application Programming Interface (API) Framework for the banking sector and launched its own Open API for public access. The formulation of the Open API Framework is one of the seven initiatives announced by the HKMA in September 2017 to prepare Hong Kong to move into a new era of Smart Banking.
The Framework takes a risk-based principle and four-phase approach to implement various Open API functions, and recommends prevailing international technical standards to ensure fast adoption and security. It expects the first two phases to be completed in the next 12 to 15 months, and also lays out detailed expectations on how banks should onboard and maintain relationships with third party services providers in a manner that ensures consumer protection.
On the regulator’s website, some 130 sets of information covering all financial data and important information will be made available for Open API by phases until mid-2019, starting with 50 sets covering the information most frequently accessed by the public, such as statistics on Hong Kong dollar exchange rates, interest rates, the banking sector and the Exchange Fund, as well as press releases and Coin Cart schedule.