Tyk FAPI Accelerator for Open Banking

Last updated: May 21, 2025

Introduction

Open Banking is a financial services framework that enables secure data sharing between banks and third-party providers (TPPs) through standardized APIs. It fosters innovation, enhances customer experiences, and ensures compliance with regulatory requirements such as:

Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) (PSD2) in the European Union, mandating secure access to account information and payment services.
UK Open Banking (UK Open Banking), a UK initiative for standardized financial APIs.
Consumer Data Right (CDR) (CDR) in Australia, enabling consumer data sharing.
Financial Data Exchange (FDX) (FDX) in the United States, an industry-led standard for data sharing.

Open Banking is enabling the banking industry to move from closed ecosystems to open standards and collaborative platforms where customer data can be securely shared with authorized third parties. However, financial institutions face challenges implementing secure, compliant, Open Banking APIs. This document explores how Tyk API Gateway, through its FAPI Accelerator, enables financial institutions to implement robust Open Banking APIs.

Challenges in Financial Services API Implementation

Implementing Open Banking APIs presents several challenges:

Stringent Security Requirements:
- Compliance with Financial-grade API (FAPI) standards, such as FAPI 2.0, which ensure high-security API interactions.
- Ensuring data integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation for sensitive financial transactions.
Complex Authentication:
- Implementing OAuth 2.0 with features like Pushed Authorization Requests (PAR) (PAR) and Demonstrating Proof of Possession (DPoP) (DPoP).
- Managing secure user consent and authorization flows.
Event Notifications:
- Enabling TPPs to subscribe to real-time updates about account and payment events.
- Signing notifications with cryptographic signatures for security.
Idempotency:
- Ensuring that duplicate requests (especially for payments) don’t result in duplicate transactions.
Developer Experience:
- Providing a seamless experience for TPP developers while maintaining high-security standards.

What is Tyk FAPI Accelerator?

The Tyk FAPI Accelerator is a reference implementation provided by Tyk Technologies to help financial institutions build secure, standards-compliant Open Banking APIs. Built on the Tyk API Gateway.

Architecture Overview

The diagram below shows the Tyk FAPI Accelerator system in its environment, including users, external systems, and key actors.

    flowchart TB
    %% People/Actors
    psu(["PSU (Payment Services User)
    A customer of the bank who accesses their accounts and initiates payments through third-party providers"])
    tpp(["TPP (Third Party Provider)
    Companies providing financial services like account aggregators, credit checkers, and savings apps that integrate with banks"])
    aspsp(["ASPSP (Account Servicing Payment Service Provider)
    Banks and financial institutions that provide account and payment APIs to authorized third parties"])
    
    %% Systems
    subgraph tykFAPI ["Tyk FAPI Accelerator"]
        tykFAPISystem["Provides FAPI-compliant APIs for account information and payment initiation"]
    end
    
    %% Relationships
    psu -->|"Views accounts,
    initiates payments"| tykFAPI
    tpp -->|"Integrates with,
    consumes APIs from"| tykFAPI
    aspsp -->|"Configures, monitors,
    provides services through"| tykFAPI
    
    %% Styling
    classDef person fill:#335FFD,color:#F7F7FF,stroke:#9393AA
    classDef system fill:#00A3A0,color:#F7F7FF,stroke:#03031C
    class psu,tpp,aspsp person
    class tykFAPISystem system