About Us

We are building a common standard for Open Banking API’s in Nigeria.

Background

As technology and social media become more tightly integrated into the livesof everyday users, their needs and requirements rapidly evolve. Unfortunately, most banks have not been able to meet these demands, especially when compared with what customers are used to regarding social media apps, etc.

The rise of financial technologies is meant to ameliorate these problems by providing APIs and other technologies to allow innovative financial applications and services to be built. Nevertheless, because of the lack of standards and reference points, the implementations have been mostly misses than hits for banks and Fintechs.

A group of industry players came together to form Open Technology Foundation (OTF); the not-for-profit
organization is driving the development and adoption of Open Banking standards in Nigeria.

Open Banking API Standards

The primary objectives of the OTF are to:

  • Analyze the need of the industry for common API standards among banks
    and other financial institutions,
  • Develop the common API standards,
  • Provide a sandbox and other testing tools for certification,
  • Promote adoption of Open Banking standards with stakeholders across Nigeria,
  • Enable further innovation in the financial services industry.

What we plan to achieve

The Open Technology Foundation is working with banks, seasoned individual industry professionals and Fintechs to define an open and non-partisan set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to design the API standards. The design and review process has involved 8 commercial banks, OFIs and top Fintech players in the country. The OTF has scheduled the APIs to be released into Alpha by January 2018.

Open Banking APIs and PSD2

The second Payment Services Directive standards designed for the European Unionis geared to go live by 2018. While the Open Banking Nigeria APIs are open and are designed to be a standard, they are not PSD2 APIs.

Secure by design

Security is a big concern for every financial institution, especially in Nigeria. Taking from the experience of OTF members, security has been designed right into the API standards from the grounds up.

Our
Team

Ademola-Majekodunmi

Malaika Ademola-Majekodunmi

Program Manager

Chigozie Madubuko

Technology

Sodiq Fagbola

Technology

Unyime Tommy

Quality Assurance

Chigozie Okereke

Quality Assurance

Fade Adeniyi

Quality Assurance

Oge Anne Okonkwo

Communications

Board of
Trustees

Adedeji Olowe

Trustee

Ayowole Popoola

Trustee

Khadijah Abu

Trustee

Ope Adeoye

Trustee

Yvonne-Faith

Yvonne-Faith Elaigwu

Trustee

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami