tracking the growth of the api economy

The API EconomyDisruption and the Business of APIs

Nordic APIs

2015 - 2016 Nordic APIs

Contents

Preface: Introducing the API Economy and the Businessof APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Tracking the Growth of the API Economy . . . . . . . . . 1Growth by the Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2The Birth of B2D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Growth by Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Analysis: Evidence of Market Maturity . . . . . . . . . 10

11 New Breeds of Businesses That Have Emerged out ofthe API Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121: Company that Provides API to Developer Consumers

as Top Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132: Company Whose Infrastructure Depends Heavily on

Third Party APIs for Survival . . . . . . . . . . . 143: Company that Supports APIs with Management So-

lutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144: Companies that Specialize in API Testing and Moni-

toring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155: API Documentation-as-a-Service . . . . . . . . . . . 176: Tools for API Development and Continuous Delivery 177: Cloud Hosting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188: Companies that Specialize in API Discovery and

Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199: API Brokers - Independent API Strategy Consultants 2010: Companies that Bring APIs to the Laymen . . . . . . 21

CONTENTS

11: Organizations that Disseminate API Knowledge . . . 21Analysis: More Innovative Business Types . . . . . . . . 22

Sectors for Exploitation with APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Cost Cutting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Food Data and Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Freight Trucking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Green Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Home Health Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Analysis: Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

The Role of APIs in Growing Financial Technology . . . . 31FinTech and APIs: Making the Bank Programmable . . . 31The State of FinTech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Advantages of Exposing a Bank with an API . . . . . . 33In-Account App Marketplaces, other Proof of Concepts . 35With PSD2, EU Banks Will be Open by Law . . . . . . . 37Regulatory Impact on Personal Data Rights . . . . . . . 37The Open Banking (and Data) Landscape . . . . . . . . 38Analysis: Implications of Open Banking . . . . . . . . . 42

How APIs are Streamlining Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 44Why Healthcare Needs APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Using APIs for Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Improving Clarity for Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Making Operations Easier for Health Professionals . . . 48The Trouble with Using APIs in a Healthcare Setting . . 49Making Things Easier for Researchers . . . . . . . . . . 50The Future of Healthcare and APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

APIs Are Evolving The B2B Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . 54In With The New, Out With (Some) Old . . . . . . . . . 55The Clothing Chain Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56B2B 15 Years Ago: The Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . 56Why B2B Strategy Really Needs An API Strategy . . . . 57Getting The Conversation Rolling . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

CONTENTS

API Advocacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Convincing An Architect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Analysis: B2B World is Slowly Changing with APIs . . 63

The Core Principles of API Management . . . . . . . . . . 64A Definition of API Management . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67API Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68API Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Developer Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Analysis: An Attempt at an Objective, General Definition 73

How APIs Are Disrupting The Way We Think . . . . . . . 74Disruption or Destruction? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75The Biggest Disruption of All: APIs Change Our Expec-

tations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77APIs Are the Digital Glue Holding Our World Together 79How Can Todays Developers Take Advantage of API

Disruption? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80Analysis: Drive API Disruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Should Every Company Consider Providing an API? . . . 83Common Myths Surrounding APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Myth #1: All APIs Are Public . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Myth #2: Providing APIs Is an IT-Only Matter . . . . . 84Myth #3: Providing APIs Is Only For Internet Startups

And Giants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Developing an Internal API: A First Crucial Step With

Many Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87From The IT Department Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 87From the Company Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Providing APIs to Others: The Next Step . . . . . . . . . 92Analysis: APIs Must Be a Concern For Every Company 94

The Future of the API Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

CONTENTS

API Indicator #1: API Becomes an Accepted Tool toGrow Your Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

API Indicator #2: Microservices Architecture Allows AllDepartments to Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

API Indicator #3: Are Public APIs Losing Their Luster? . 100Analysis: Are You Getting All You Can out of the API

Economy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Preface: Introducing theAPI Economy and the

Business of APIs

In 2006, the most predominant form of digital social communica-tion was still email, and AOL instant messenger. A decade later,things have obviously changed quite rapidly in the face of higherbandwidth, greater capabilities, and the explosion of social media.Software-as-a-Service is an area that is growing exponentially.The digital platformification of older industries, paired with newadvances in the Internet of Things (IoT) makes the API space thepowerhouse driving Internet connectivity ripe for investment.

APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are an importantcog in this process, and the market surrounding them is thriving.As John Musser of API Science told us, their future ubiquitythroughout our digital fabric is inevitable. APIs encourage stan-

i

Preface: Introducing the API Economy and the Business of APIs ii

dardization have you ever used Twitter to log in to a third partyapplication? They extend functionality so that more potential isat our fingertips how often do you query a map embeddedinto a web application? By exposing assets to developers to createnew apps with, APIs also inspire innovation, promote data matterexperts, lead to creative projects, and subtly increase the end usersexperience.

APIs, in the family of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) products, arepart of an agile business methodology, which for the provider,can create entirely new revenue streams. Also an accelerator forcorporate communication the industry routinely uses AmazonWeb Services as a the hallmark of internal API adoption and theefficiency benefits therein.

APIs can be used to open new monetization streams alongside ex-isting ones, butAPI-first companies have emerged that are entirelybuilt around an API service. Twillio, Algolia, Contentful.com, andothers are examples of companies that are exposing an API as theirmain product. But as John Donne says No man is an island. Everyproduct we purchase is the culmination of a lot of group effort.Even something as simple as an apple is full of dependencies. Agrower must rely on the seeds to sprout, purchase fertilizer, buyfrom land owners, hire pickers and distributors, work with retailers,and pay utility providers all to produce a single fruit that the endconsumer haphazardly throws into a shopping cart.

The API space has produced an economy in its own right. Thereis obviously the monetary exchange from developer user to APIprovider. But looking deeper, partners to API programs haveemerged that offer key components to support an API throughoutits lifecycle, streamlining operations for the API provider and im-proving their overall developer program. Whether it be marketing,development, documentation, metric analysis, security, and more,new microservices and platforms are available to smooth an APIscreation and maintenance. This additional layer is strong evidence

Preface: Introducing the API Economy and the Business of APIs iii

of an industry maturing.

If you are a programmer looking for some code samples, this eBookmay not be for you. This is the API Economy, the business of APIs.Well forecast into the future growth of the API industry, analyzethe impact APIs have historically had on specific industries, and seewhere existing APIs as well as partners to API providers fit into theoverall spectrum. Something really cool that this volume exploresare specific sectors that have not yet been API-fied (entrepreneurs hint hint).

If you are an economist, industry expert, entrepreneur looking for anew project, or simply intrigued by the concept of disruptive APIs,read on

Please enjoy The API Economy, and let us know how we canimprove. Be sure to join the Nordic APIs newsletter for updates,and follow us for news on upcoming events.

Thank you for reading!

Bill Doerrfeld, Editor in Chief, Nordic APIs

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Tracking the Growth of theAPI Economy

APIs are nothing new. Salesforce and eBay first allowed accessto their web APIs in the year 2000, and other organizations weretinkering with the idea of exposing endpoints even before that.

The past few years, however, have seen such explosive growththat the API space is evolving more rapidly than ever before. Likebig data and the cloud did before them, APIs are enjoyingmass exposure and appeal to individuals beyond core groups ofdevelopers who deal with them on a daily basis.

But how does this growth compare with forecasts a few years ago?Is it sustainable? And why exactly has the space grown so rapidly?

1

Tracking the Growth of the API Economy 2

Growth by the Numbers

Back in 2012, GetElastic andMonetate published an infographic thatestimated that we would see 30,000 APIs by 2016, with 100 newAPIs coming online each week. As it turns out, these estimates werea little on the high side. The ProgrammableWeb directory of APIsreported that in 2015, just shy of 2,000 APIs were added to the site.This works out to around 40 APIs being added per week, and thetotal number of APIs represented on the directory currently standsat around 15,000.

Note that these numbers may be deceptive for quite a few reasons.First, there are now other API directories that need to be takeninto account. For example, APIhound estimates there are 50,000public web APIs, and APIs.io tracks over 1,000. Although there iscertainly much overlap, some of these APIs may not yet reside inthe manually curated PW.com directory.

More importantly, none of these numbers take into considerationthe wealth of private or partner APIst that exist, which someestimate may even outnumber the public total. Some organizations

http://www.programmableweb.com/news/50-interesting-apis-added-to-programmableweb-2015/brief/2016/01/04


only bundle access to their API through premium accounts, effec-tively making them less visible. These may not always be listedon app marketplaces because information about them is scarce oractively kept hidden, a discrepancy that Craig Burton has identified:

The key thing to consider here is that these numbersare based on publicly available APIs and do not reflectany private API growth at all In all likelihood, anyglitches that we see in Open API growth are expectedto happen as the private sector catches up or evensurpasses Open API growth.

Another thing that early projections may not have taken intoaccount is that so many developers would trust consuming thirdparty APIs rather than building internal solutions themselves. Forexample, theres only one MailChimp API but ProgrammableWebcites 15 mashups that have been built using it.

The Birth of B2D

Writing for the Graydon blog, Alice Payne posits B2D, or businessto developer, as a new form of marketing that has emerged primar-ily as a result of APIs.

If youre reading this post, youre undoubtedly already aware thatAPIs are big business. But what you may not know, and what manyearly API growth projections did not necessarily take into account,is just how dominant some APIs are in their spaces today.

Look at the rate of API calls for any popular API in recent yearsand youll see a graph shape that displays rapid growth:

http://nordicapis.com/how-to-grow-and-profit-using-a-freemium-api-monetization-model/https://www.kuppingercole.com/blog/burton/is-api-growth-in-a-stallhttp://nordicapis.com/first-or-third-party-apis/http://nordicapis.com/first-or-third-party-apis/https://www.graydon.co.uk/blog/b2d--how-the-rise-of-apis-is-creating-a-new-genre-of-marketing


Source: MailChimp

Source: Netflix

The Netflix API has since turned private so theres no fresh data tocompare, but MailChimp more than quintupled the amount of APIrequests they handle each day to more than 50 million by 2015 and80 million by the beginning of 2016. They also have a developmentfund worth 1 million dollars devoted to encouraging up and coming

http://blog.mailchimp.com/10m-api-calls-per-day-more/http://techblog.netflix.com/2011/02/redesigning-netflix-api.htmlhttp://devs.mailchimp.com/blog/taking-a-hard-look-at-api-v2-0/http://mailchimp.com/2015/#api-calls


devs to build using their API.

Given all of this, its easy to see why so many devs are compelled touse dominant APIs that are already out there and have established agood reputation rather than trusting a newer, smaller API provider.On the other side of the coin, this also accounts for why somewould-be API providers havent bothered trying to compete withthe big players in the market.

Essentially, emerging monopolies in the space could account for alevelling effect of the exponential growth ratio of APIs, but doesntat all translate to a capping of actual total API calls.

Growth by Sectors

The growth of the API economy isnt dueto any one factor, rather a perfect storm ofsectors emerging that all rely on APIs tosome degree. Throughout this eBook wewill explore various sectors impacted bythe API revolution, but for now well takea look at a few of the major ones, whichare particularly important because theyve helped to demonstratethe usefulness of APIs to the general laymen population.

API consumer market

APIs are no longer viewed as complicated, stuffy services thatonly experienced developers can use. Apps like IFTTT and Zapierare interesting because theyve opened up the functionality ofAPIs to non-devs. If youve ever seen someone cross-posting onInstagram, Facebook, and Twitter simultaneously then youve likelyseen IFTTT in action.

http://www.ifttt.comhttp://www.zapier.com


While its true that many hugely popular apps make use of APIs,they usually do so in such a way that the average consumerprobably doesnt realise it. Zapier and IFTTT are among the firstto transparently use APIs in a way that the average Internet usercan understand.

In the same way that Myspace enabled a generation of amateurcoders by allowing the use of HTML to create custom profilepages, IFTTT and Zapier are creating amateur API consumers byencouraging them to create their own recipes or Zaps.

What makes this particularly important is that its going on at thesame time as the emergence of the Internet of Things.

IoT

The Internet of Things is a notable use for APIs because it representsanother area in which the general public will become more familiarwith the inner workings of APIs. Weve previously written at lengthon how APIs drive the IoT, and others have too, but it bearsrepeating just how important the relationship is, especially as IoTdesign is still evolving.

Time will tell exactly how prevalent IoT enabled devices become,but the rapid adoption of smart wearables hooked up to Nike+,Amazons Echo, and so on suggests that theres definitely anaudience for the sort of hyperconnected world that the Internetof Things promises. In fact, 44% of API providers surveyed bySmartbear in 2016 believe that IoT will drive the most API growthin the next two years.

FinTech

Finance is typically an area that has been very slow to warm upto new technology, sticking with tried and tested methods thathave been around for years. However, enough banks and financial

http://nordicapis.com/4-apps-rely-apis-survival/http://nordicapis.com/the-state-of-iot-information-design-why-every-iot-device-needs-an-api/http://nordicapis.com/apis-power-the-internet-of-things/http://www.infoworld.com/article/3015181/apis/in-2016-the-internet-of-things-will-be-the-main-driver-of-api-infrastructure-growth.htmlhttps://smartbear.com/resources/ebooks/state-of-api-survey-report-2016/https://smartbear.com/resources/ebooks/state-of-api-survey-report-2016/


institutions have embraced change that there are some excitingdevelopments in FinTech.

APIs are changing the face of personal banking as well as thatof the financial space more generally with quicker onboardingprocesses, partnerships and better integration with other servicesrepresenting just a few of the changes that have taken place in recentyears.

APIs also have a vital role to play in the world of cryptocurrency,such as with Block.io, who use APIs to provide a wallet that canstore litecoin, dogecoin and bitcoin in one place, as well as enablingusers to build apps to process transactions, forward payments andcreate different types of secure wallets.

Social Networks

There are billions of smartphones in use across the world, with over200 million in the U.S. alone, and countless mobile services are builton APIs to the extent that they rely on them to function properly.

The data below is a few years old but demonstrates, even then, howimportant APIs are to the social space.

http://nordicapis.com/psd2-sanctions-access-to-personal-banking-data-amplifying-fintech-growth/http://nordicapis.com/fintech-and-apis-making-a-bank-programmable/www.block.iohttp://www.statista.com/statistics/201182/forecast-of-smartphone-users-in-the-us/


Source: [API Frenzy SlideShare](http://www.slideshare.net/SOA_Soft-ware/api-frenzy-api-strategy-101)

Apps like iAlien and TweetDeck, mobile clients for Reddit andTwitter, only came into existence thanks to open APIs from the twosites. Reddit didnt even offer an official mobile app for a long time,and TweetDeck was ultimately acquired by Twitter in 2011 afterbeing identified as a key factor in the companys mobile growth.

As social networks continue to appear, grow and evolve, third partydevelopers and APIs will continue to play a vital role in the processof expansion via mobile and desktop apps.

B2B Products and Services

The B2B space is another area in which APIs continue to havea significant impact. A common growth technique for startupsand other growing companies is to create integrations with otherorganisations, either bymanually linking up their APIs or through athird party like OneSaaS, often with the aim of reducing the amountof time that has to be spent on entering data more than once.

http://nordicapis.com/twitter-10-year-struggle-with-developer-relations/http://nordicapis.com/apis-are-evolving-the-b2b-landscape-2/


Another thing to consider is the way in which some organizationsinclude access to their API as a perk to customers above certain pricepoints. For example, Salesforce allows integration via web serviceAPI only to Enterprise and Unlimited customers. Its worth notingthat they generate 50% of their revenue through APIs.

Integration, and thus APIs as well, continues to be a key factorfor B2B organizations and the idea of connectedness is onethat persists. 41.4% of those surveyed by Smartbear respondedthat integration with existing tools is the first thing they look atwhen assessing the potential for using an API, and 39% cite betterinteraction between products/services they use as the second mostimportant issue they deal with when using tools in the workplace.

http://www.salesforce.com/uk/crm/editions-pricing.jsphttps://hbr.org/2015/01/the-strategic-value-of-apishttps://smartbear.com/resources/ebooks/state-of-api-survey-report-2016/


Analysis: Evidence of Market Maturity

Some of the numbers above suggest that API growth is slowingdown, but this is nowhere near true to the degree that you mightdeduce.

Source: ProgrammableWeb

Notice the way that the above graph, which looked exponentialin 2013, starts to level out towards the end. This is a trend thatcontinued into 2014 and into 2016, but it could actually be arguedthat this is a good thing.

Hockey stick growth is often unsustainable and, in the case ofAPIs, might indicate a glut of subpar or unreliable products. Giventhe importance of uptime and scalability in the API space, that couldbe damaging to the reputation of APIs as a whole.

It could be said that the API space is maturing, growing horizontallyrather than vertically. The trend honeymoon, during which manyorganizations jumped on the open API bandwagon because it wasseen as the thing to do only to abandon/retire them soon after,is over but the usage of APIs continues to explode.

http://www.programmableweb.com/news/9000-apis-mobile-gets-serious/2013/04/30


The number of APIs may not be growingat the rate that was predicted a few yearsago, though its not too far off, but theirusage and the surrounding economy ofservices shows no signs of stalling.

With the mainstreaming of APIs throughpopular services that make use of them,organisations making APIs a serious factorin their business model and the progress of mobile technologyand the Internet of Things, theres little doubt that the space willcontinue to grow and flourish at a rapid pace. In the next chapter,well expand on the growth of services that support this neweconomy.

http://nordicapis.com/new-breeds-of-businesses-that-have-emerged-out-of-the-api-economy/http://nordicapis.com/new-breeds-of-businesses-that-have-emerged-out-of-the-api-economy/

11 New Breeds ofBusinesses That HaveEmerged out of the API

Economy

Unprecedented tech revolution often spawns brand new servicesand companies. As technological evolution opens new possibilitiesfor humanity, is also leads to a flood of ideas and new businessventures never before possible. Now, as hyper-specialization oc-curs throughout the Internet, the API economy has become amacrocosm in its own right, spawning brand new types of adjunctcompanies.

12

11 New Breeds of Businesses That Have Emerged out of the API Economy 13

Once simply a strategic offshoot for existing tech, APIs or Appli-cation Programming Interfaces have transformed into Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), the bread and butter upon which many apps arenowadays built. With this reliance and wide spread use, innovativetooling and new industry experts have come onto the scene tosupport APIs.

A lot has been said about the emergence of the API economy/in-dustry. But what exactly has emerged? What type of businesses arepioneering in this new ecosystem, andwhat tools or services do theycontribute exactly? Thus, the goal of this chapter isnt to showcasecertain providers, but rather to make sense of the ever growingindustry through categorization. Weve done our best to identifynew breeds of companies that quite literally owe their existence tothe emergence of the world of APIs.

1: Company that Provides API toDeveloper Consumers as Top Priority

For some time now, many companies have provided a public APIas a means for others to access their infrastructure, but this washistorically done on the sidelines. We now see more and more API-first companies emerge whose entire business model exists arounddevelopers using their Software-as-a-Service. These sort of APIsare often niched, performing one functionality extraordinarily well,and monetized in a freemium model, like the Stripe payment API,for example.

Companies have built and sold tooling languages, frameworks,etc. for web developers to create new software with for decades.This relationship between software vendors and developers isntnew, but the standardization of offerings and ubiquity in the APIspace especially has proven quite substantial.

http://nordicapis.com/living-in-the-cloud-stack-understanding-saas-paas-and-iaas-apis/http://nordicapis.com/how-to-grow-and-profit-using-a-freemium-api-monetization-model/


2: Company Whose InfrastructureDepends Heavily on Third Party APIs for

Survival

There are of course the users, the consumers ofAPIs. Many mobile apps are essentially marriedto various APIs. In our article on choosing brickproducts, we identify the emergence of the com-posite enterprise the core IT for large industriesis becoming an assemblage of microservices as well. Core companyIT may be completely API-fied, as in the case with streamlininginternal operations at Amazon or Netflix.

APIs are also leveraged to grow social networks some haveargued that without third party developer apps, explosive growthwith Instagram for example, would not have been possible. Fromour research, its safe to say that most digitally savvy companiesnow rely on either Private, Public, or Partner APIs in order functionin the state we know them.

In a composite enterprise, a competitive advantage thus arises outof the unique assemblage of functionality. In the future, what com-panies bring to the table will become only increasingly embeddedwith the digital services at hand, thus increasing the reliance onnear 100% uptime for SaaS.

3: Company that Supports APIs withManagement Solutions

Providing an API is no easy task. Even after the core functionalityis programmed, you must still consider hosting, filtering API calls,monitoring usage, access control, documentation, howDevOps willhandle ongoing maintenance, and much more.

http://nordicapis.com/4-apps-rely-apis-survival/http://nordicapis.com/evolving-companys-lego-computing-age-choose-brick-product/http://nordicapis.com/evolving-companys-lego-computing-age-choose-brick-product/http://nordicapis.com/microservices-architecture-the-good-the-bad-and-what-you-could-be-doing-better/http://nordicapis.com/instagram-api-and-the-transient-nature-of-public-social-apis/http://nordicapis.com/api-ebooks/developing-the-api-mindset/http://nordicapis.com/6-techniques-99-999-uptime/http://nordicapis.com/defining-the-emerging-role-of-devops/


Because of this, a sea of platforms has emerged to support APIsthroughout their lifecycles, allowing developers and non developersalike to create, run, distribute, and/or monetize APIs. API Man-agementmay involve offering server space for API functionality, afront-end documentation for developer consumers, a dashboard forperformance monitoring, billing, and/or specific security solutions.We wont attempt to list of all the types of solutions or providersavailable, but they include things like:

Comprehensive API management solutions; monitoring tools for analytics; gateways, rate limiting Middleware from enterprise to cloud connect applications tointegrate with new business partners

key generation security tools for access management, identity control

API management is still a nebulous term, and weve attemptedto reach a vendor neutral definition in the past that includes theDeveloper Portal the forward facing facade that developers canvisit to learn about your API, the API Registry where data andfunctionality is actually stored, and theAPI Gateway that whichreceives API calls and filters traffic. API management is certainly anarea that has seenmuch expansion. API Evangelists lists 52 differentmanagement companies in his research.

4: Companies that Specialize in APITesting and Monitoring

APIs need a careful eye. To avoid bugs, and to improve all aroundDeveloper Experience, testing must be routinely performed, espe-cially before deployment, but at all times for continuous integrationscenarios.

http://nordicapis.com/core-principles-api-management/http://management.apievangelist.com/organizations/http://management.apievangelist.com/organizations/http://nordicapis.com/functional-vs-useful-what-makes-a-useful-api/http://nordicapis.com/10-continuous-integration-tools-spur-api-development/


Testing may be part of an API management so-lution, but many niche companies have emergedthat specialize solely on testing, helping automatefunctionality testing and performance monitor-ing for your APIs or API dependencies. Thesetools often act as a proxy which can performthings like:

load testing: demand is put on the API to determine how itbehaves under peak load conditions

performance monitoring: helps identify bugs and makessure the API behaves as expected, helps consumers adhereto their service level agreements

resource management: the monitoring of resources thatsupport API performance

track usage: automated logging of use to trackmethod accessand analyze traffic

A testing paradigm could be manually developed as a simple toolto test requests, but as weve mentioned before, it doesnt alwayshelp to reinvent the wheel. There are companies that go a littlefurther with virtualization, a front-end Testing-as-a-Service foryour developer consumers that is mockups on steroids whichmimicks the live API performance.

The ongoing monitoring of uptime and performance behavior iscornerstone to a quality API with good developer relations. Thoughoutsourcing may not fit every situation, a well-polished automatedmonitoring mechanism means increased response time to errors,and better preparation for increased traffic, both meaning an in-crease in end user happiness.

http://testing.apievangelist.com/organizations/http://nordicapis.com/monitor-the-status-of-apis-with-these-4-tools/http://nordicapis.com/first-or-third-party-apis/http://nordicapis.com/5-benefits-of-using-virtualization-to-test-your-api/


5: API Documentation-as-a-Service

Some have suggested that in the near future you will literally ownnothing. Instead, everything will be consumed in the same waywe now use media or integrate cloud software components as asubscription model. Not surprisingly, the Everything-as-a-Service(XaaS) trend spans to how we expose APIs as well.

The way we describe APIs is vital. A key component to the devel-oper hub, documentation is the visual, forward facing resource thatusers will refer to until the end of your services life cycle. Greatdocumentation is often structured in the 3 columned approach,outlining all potential requests and functions, the proper HTTP callsto use, and code examples.

Documentation should be readable and optimized to increase theonboarding time for the service this means lucid description,ample commenting, excellent architecture, layout design, andmore.With good reference being such a fundamental tool for API exis-tence, its no wonder that experts have arisen, and that providersare willing to pay a per-month charge for their services.

Tools like Swagger, owned by SmartBear and powering the OpenAPI Initiative, can be used to generate API server code, client code,and documentation for these services. Or take Readme.io, which canbe used to create API references, extend a developer portal with aplatform for additional guides, code packages, use cases, tutorials,common troubleshooting questions, and more.

Though some API specification formats are going open source,these projects are supported by parent companies with a claim stakein supporting the API economy.

6: Tools for API Development andContinuous Delivery

http://nordicapis.com/beautiful-ui-design-for-api-developer-portals/http://nordicapis.com/beautiful-ui-design-for-api-developer-portals/http://readme.io/http://swagger.io/http://readme.io/http://nordicapis.com/open-api-initiative-means-api-space/


The wealth of companies creating tools for build-ing out and maintaining APIs is tremendous making it very difficult to sum up in a singlesection. To get an idea, subcategories include:

Web frameworks: Microframeworks specif-ically designed for building lightweightweb services are all the rage. Weve experimented with usingSpark, Play, and Lumen frameworks in the past.

Continuous integration: Rapid change re-quires iterative and quick releases. There-fore, tools that support the DevOps ap-proach to API development are numerous.

Configurationmanagement. Docker con-tainerization has changed theway the buildprocess for web development is packaged.

Library generation: Tooling has emergedthat enables one to automatically deriveSDKs or language specific code librariesfrom their API specification.

7: Cloud Hosting

Every web application needs a place to live. Cloud computing didntexactly emerge out of the API economy like others on this list, butit is a huge part of the API industry equation the thousands ofchugging APIs have certainly increased our reliance on cloud serverproviders.

In the 90s and 2000s choosing a service to host a PHP application, forexample, was relatively straightforward. Today, many frameworksexist it seems that every cloud PaaS provider is doing somethingslightly different. Writing for Airpair, Daniel Rice outlines howto go about hosting a Ruby on Rails application on various cloud

http://nordicapis.com/api-ebooks/programming-apis-with-the-spark-web-framework/http://nordicapis.com/building-a-rest-api-in-java-scala-using-play-framework-2-part-1/http://nordicapis.com/build-api-lumen-micro-framework/http://nordicapis.com/api-driven-devops-spotlight-on-docker/https://www.airpair.com/ruby-on-rails/posts/rails-host-comparison-aws-digitalocean-heroku-engineyard


computing providers. These service chargemonthly fees for varyingbandwidth, providing things like:

a virtual server, permanent cloud storage for resources, using a console to create instances and deploy, aggregation of virtual private servers, and targeting for geographical regions.

A softwares cloud stack will rely on the makeup of the technologyfrom which the API is derived. Whether you go through AmazonWeb Services, DigitalOcean, Heroku, or others, every web applica-tion needs to exist somewhere.

8: Companies that Specialize in APIDiscovery and Marketing

As a developer, finding an integration for an appmay be as simple as a Google search. Neverthe-less, many have sought to profit in some wayfrom the overwhelming amount of APIs availableby organizing them into directories, or designingnew formats to automate search and discovery.

Many discovery tools we listed 11 ways to find APIs areavailable to help entrepreneurs and app developers discover APIsto integrate with. Some API management solutions supply publiclysearchable directories, while other aggregations are manually cu-rated or automatically compiled using unique methods.

For discovery by web search to be possible, typical SEO and digitalmarketing should be considered. But making something discover-able is really the tip of the iceberg when promoting technology;developer engagement and evangelism are full time jobs.

http://nordicapis.com/api-discovery-11-ways-to-find-apis/http://nordicapis.com/day-in-the-life-of-an-api-developer-evangelist/


This outreach and community-building aspect of API marketing isstarting to be outsourced by niche agencies. For example, Catchyspecifically help grow developer communities, a strong parallelwith marketing API prgorams.

9: API Brokers - Independent APIStrategy Consultants

With all these new businesses, novel technology, confusing termi-nology, and competing services, the industry is certainly dauntingfor newcomers. There is certainly room for experts to fill in thegaps. In 2014, Cyril Galliard described the need for an API Brokerto consult his startup, stating that Understanding the World ofAPIs was the #1 important asset he could hope for in a co-founder. Similar thoughts were echoed throughout the blogosphere.API experts that follow the industry could aid businesses in thefollowing ways:

Brokers understand the economy and can recommend inte-grations,

Strategy consultants review existing APIs, consult the over-all business strategy

Programmers are contracted to offer design advice, developan API, or build libraries

API advocate for hire: individuals who have experience inAPI marketing, evangelism, or outreach will become moreand more valuable.

Already, many consultants like Mike Kelly (Stateless.co), JamesHigganbothan (LaunchAny), Kin Lane (APIware), (Hitch hq), andothers have emerged that are doing this sort of personal consulta-tion on API strategy, design, and implementation.

http://catchyagency.com/https://medium.com/art-marketing/i-dont-need-a-business-co-founder-i-need-an-api-broker-c9be536cf8fa#.ck5xeq44ehttp://stateless.co/launchany.comhttp://apiware.io/https://www.hitchhq.com


10: Companies that Bring APIs to theLaymen

New services like Zapier and IFTTT enable users to create theirown functionality mashups using APIs. These Platform-as-a-ser-vice companies are very exciting to us, as they are some of the firstservices transparently offering plug and play API functionalities sothat non-devs can now interact and take advantage of APIs.

11: Organizations that Disseminate APIKnowledge

Last but not least on our list are the groupsthat spread the word of API. There are plenty ofconferences, blogs and news channels that circu-late industry expert opinions, as well as codingacademies that turn novices into practitioners.The increasing number of dedicated channels covering the APIindustry is a clear indicator that a thriving economy has formed.


Analysis: More Innovative BusinessTypes

The API industry hasnt been around for allthat long, but in its decade of active growthhas spawned a new ecosystem of interconnectedservices, with unprecedented companies that owetheir existence to the ubiquity of this tech. Emer-gence is clear, but the next question to be asked is howmany of thesecompanies are sustainable, and turning a profit. The API economyis a thriving and high-yield field, certainly with much room forgrowth.

There is inherently overlap between the businesses models men-tioned above testing and documentation are often parcels ofholistic API management solutions; infrastructure and deploy-ment specifics may be embedded into a holistic cloud server ar-rangement, etc. The high impact of APIs on our web usage makesit difficult to condense or categorize web economy; other businessmodels that could be appended to our list are things like:

IoT gadgets and supporting services SOA-to-cloud integration specialists Analytics firms that track trends throughout the developereconomy

and more

What will the future API economy resemble? We will likely con-tinue to see more and more experts in the field emerge whospecialize in even finer details surrounding the API lifecycle.

http://nordicapis.com/api-ebooks/the-api-lifecycle/

Sectors for Exploitationwith APIs

In 2015 theres an API for that became an oft-repeated phrase,entering the vernacular with the same frequency as the app-basedequivalent. Fueling the usage of this phrase is an increasing numberof organizations taking their products to market using a SaaS-first(Software-as-a-Service) approach, exposing an Application Pro-gramming Interface or API at the core of their offering. This growthhas delivered breadth to the API economy, with the majority ofindustries offering a burgeoning number of APIs fulfilling an evergreater number of use cases.

In the past weve covered how areas like IoT, FinTech, health-care, sustainability, and others have become more and more pro-

23

http://nordicapis.com/new-breeds-of-businesses-that-have-emerged-out-of-the-api-economy/http://nordicapis.com/the-state-of-iot-information-design-why-every-iot-device-needs-an-api/http://nordicapis.com/psd2-sanctions-access-to-personal-banking-data-amplifying-fintech-growth/http://nordicapis.com/how-apis-are-streamlining-healthcarehttp://nordicapis.com/how-apis-are-streamlining-healthcarehttp://nordicapis.com/green-apis-promote-sustainability-and-climate-action/

Sectors for Exploitation with APIs 24

grammable. Despite this growth there are doubtless some industriesand sectors where APIs are relatively underrepresented, whichcould be of specific interest to entrepreneurs looking for the nextgrowth market. In this chapter we take a look at some of theseareas of potential growth to see how they align to gaps in the APIeconomy.

Cost Cutting

An interesting growth area is costcutting, with IT Business Edge citingthird-party administration and insur-ance claims adjusting having grown7.7% between 2011 and 2016 with manyinsurance companies outsourcingworkin an effort to cut costs. APIs could beused in a number of ways in this sector:

APIs could be used to create amarketplace for such services,allowing freelancers to bid for and win jobs alongside thelarge corporations;

They can also serve as an integration mechanism, allowingadjusted claims to be logged and retrieved by any consumingapplication;

Finally, APIs have a role to play in the automation anddigitization of workflow and processes.

There appears to be few API providers trying to grow a SaaS-firstoffering in this space. One example of an organization developingtheir API offering (although not from the SaaS perspective) isthe Ability Network, which markets their API toolkit as helpinginsurance companies who are looking for more efficient and lesscostly ways to obtain the data they need. With some creativity

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/slideshows/show.aspx?c=90055&slide=9http://abilitynetwork.com/http://abilitynetwork.com/partners/ability-access/


entrepreneurs could expand this approach, providing a platformfor claims handling that could integrate with existing insurancetoolsets and applications via an API.

Food Data and Analytics

The idea of the connected refrigeratorhas been kicking around the Internetof Things (IoT) space for the last 20years, but that does not belie the factthat food data and analytics is a sectorin the food industry that is ripe forgrowth. Inc.comhighlights the fact thatonly 0.14% of a $21.5 trillion global

market accounts for the development of software for food logistics,processing, and retail (according to research by Frost and Sullivan).

There are many APIs in the food space already, but the majority ofthese focus on subjects such as online ordering, take out, restaurantguide and recipes; a human being is involved as either the initiatoror consumer. Food data and analytics differs in that much of theactivity involved is autonomous, helping those working in thekitchen with their activities without having to ask. Some of the usesof APIs for food data and analytics include the following:

Clearly the self-ordering refrigeratorwould become a real-ity, and spawn new conversations between the refrigerator,the foodstuffs inside it, and the supply chain taking place viaAPIs;

The autonomous supply chain for the connected refrigeratorwould undoubtedly lead to the creation of a new market-place for food where a refrigerators shopping list couldbe sourced from different suppliers at the best price, allfacilitated by APIs. Moreover, this has the scope to integrate

http://www.inc.com/graham-winfrey/best-industries-2016-food-analytics-technology.htmlhttp://ww2.frost.com/


with many other APIs, such as loyalty and coupons, groupbuying, reselling or donating surplus foodstuffs, and so on;

Like the connected refrigerator, the IoT components of theconnected kitchen would also rely on APIs for inter-com-munication. Sensors on devices like food processors, scales,and saucepanswould have amethod for communicatingwithonline recipe books or reacting to different food weightsor other conditions that may change cooking times or theproportion of different ingredients.

Many of the protagonists in this space, including companies likeInnit, are specifically interested in the kitchen equipment thereis clearly a relationship between these kitchen IoT devices andAPIs. However, from a SaaS-first perspective the market leaderswill be those that help facilitate the autonomous supply chain, andit remains to be seen who will be first to market in providing suchservices at scale.

Freight Trucking

Forbes highlights freight trucking asa major growth area for small busi-ness, quoting a 25% increase in salesfor the 12 months ending May 31 2015,with speciality haulage such as tankersand refrigeration experiencing growthrates at nearly double those acrosssmall business in all industries.

The trucking industry is always looking for cost-cutting measures whtether it be aerodynamic tire flaps designed to cut windresistance, or partially self-driving trucks that save fuel economy upto 10% by platooning. But what can data and software contribute?

http://innit.com/http://www.forbes.com/sites/sageworks/2015/06/14/the-10-fastest-growing-industries-in-small-business/#167be15e37cdhttp://www.ecoflaps.com/products.htmlhttp://www.theverge.com/2014/6/3/5774952/automated-trucks-nevadahttp://www.theverge.com/2014/6/3/5774952/automated-trucks-nevada


On first impressions it appears that freight trucking is underrep-resented in the API economy: For example, a keyword search onthe term trucking in the ProgrammableWebAPI Directory returnsonly 18 APIs listed using this phrase. The use cases for APIs in thisindustry would include the following:

Acquiring space on partially full trucks; Reselling business when demand exceeds capacity (espe-cially important for small businesses who may need to sub-contract work a times of peak demand);

Providing a marketplace for purchasing the best possiblerate for shipping good across a range of carriers (eitheraggregatingmultiple data sources and surfacing the datawithan API or aggregating other APIs).

There are some established products in this industry such as Project44. Project 44 recognizes the value APIs can bring to the truckingindustry and specifically describes their product as an Integration-Platform-as-Service (iPaaS), connecting shippers to carriers viaAPIs. Entrepreneurs entering this sector could clearly exploit asimilar approach, delivering API-based SaaS-first solutions to themarket.

Green Building

The construction of buildings with minimal environmental impacthas become one of fastest growing industries in the USA accordingto Go Banking Rates, which cites a predicted $303 million share ofGDP for this sector in the period 2015 to 2018. Whilst green APIsare becoming more common, due partly to home automation ini-tiatives that allow external control of heating and lighting systems(for example ThinkEco), APIs related to green building itself appearto be relatively sparse. Their application for green building projectscould be significant:

http://www.programmableweb.com/category/all/apis?keyword=truckinghttp://p-44.com/http://p-44.com/http://www.gobankingrates.com/investing/7-fastest-growing-industries-invest-2016/http://nordicapis.com/green-apis-promote-sustainability-and-climate-action/http://www.thinkecoinc.com/


If governments or regulatory authorities provided servicesvia APIs to approve building proposals (including designand type and quantity of materials) in an automated fashion,this could increase the rate at which green buildings areconstructed and lower the barrier to entry. The approvalprocess is typically manual (for example, in the UK a seriesof inspections and reports is required making it a labor-in-tensive process) and providing equivalent services whereverpossible via APIs would introduce many efficiencies;

APIs could help provide ongoing incentives to green build-ing owners, with APIs providing the facilities for monitoringthe continued greenness of buildings in return for taxbreaks or similar from the government.

There are of course APIs that providesome of the functionality required tocreate SaaS-first APIs for green build-ing; for example, Brighter Planet offersan API that allows the consumer to cal-culate the carbon footprint for a varietyof activities. However, to offer a SaaS-first API the provider will clearly need

to develop a platform that will facilitate manymore aspects of greenbuilding.

Home Health Care

Go Banking Rates also highlights home health care as being a fastgrowing industry, with a predicted annual growth of 2.6% each yearin the years to 2022: this is almost certainly a consequence of an ag-ing population, with a predicted 20% of the US population over 65 by2040. Health care APIs are already experiencing significant growth,but home health care appears to be a niche that is underrepresented.

http://impact.brighterplanet.com/?r=http://nordicapis.com/how-apis-are-streamlining-healthcare


Like green building, APIs could be important facilitators for thisindustry for a number of uses:

Access to patient records for a distributed workforce ofcarers and health professionals will undoubtedly be critical tothe growth of home health care. This is especially importantfor health sectors in countries like the USA where recordscould be held by multiple providers with many variations (asthis map of patient record ownership shows);

Like earlier examples, amarketplace for caretaker servicescould be established, fueling an Uber-like culture aroundsourcing and supplying care staff locally. Dovetailed withthis approach is the regulation of staff, with APIs providingthe means to perform due diligence and cross-checking ofcaretaker qualifications.

It stands to reason that governmentswill drive many APIs in the heathcare space (for example the US govern-ments HealthCare.gov developer por-tal APIs), but clearly there is spacefor entrepreneurs to foster innovationthrough API-based services. Compa-nies like Validic, which provides a plat-

form for connecting patients devices to health care providers arealready making inroads with an API-based SaaS-first approach.

http://www.healthinfolaw.org/comparative-analysis/who-owns-medical-records-50-state-comparisonhttp://nordicapis.com/how-apis-are-streamlining-healthcarehttp://nordicapis.com/how-apis-are-streamlining-healthcarehttps://www.healthcare.gov/developershttps://www.healthcare.gov/developershttps://docs.validic.com/


Analysis: Final Thoughts

There are many industries in the worldthat are growing rapidlywhich entrepreneurswill inevitably exploit. The examplesweve investigated in this post highlighthow a SaaS-first approach, fueled throughAPIs could bring even greater growth tothese industries.

It is also important to consider that entering the API economy is atwo-way street: APIs will directly benefit the stakeholders of theseindustries, but they can also bring those industries to new markets,with developers using APIs in innovative ways not conceived bythe providers. If APIs fuel the further growth of these industries itwill be an exciting time for the API economy as a whole.

The Role of APIs in GrowingFinancial Technology

FinTech and APIs: Making the BankProgrammable

Banking institutions are usually portrayed as monoliths, slow tochange even amidst obsolescence and new technological advances.This wont be for long, as the FinTech sector is becoming increas-ingly open and programmable.

Even large U.S. banking institutions like Citigroup, BBVA Compass,Bank of America and Capital One acknowledge the benefits ofopening internal systems for third party developers to integrate into

31

http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-technology/fintech-glasnost-why-us-banks-are-opening-up-apis-to-outsiders-1075284-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-technology/fintech-glasnost-why-us-banks-are-opening-up-apis-to-outsiders-1075284-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1

The Role of APIs in Growing Financial Technology 32

new apps. And, as alternative banking services like Simple or Holviemerge, we are seeing more of a diversity of services that embracenew consumer expectations brought on by the Internet and mobiledevices.

Through our research, weve tuned into FinTech experts to hearwhat organizations like Fidor, the Open Bank Project, and manyothers are doing to lead the banking revolution. Essentially, allagree that were moving toward a new financial market of customerchoice, third party services, and open data all powered by APIs.Essentially this means making the bank programmable.

The State of FinTech

FinTech stands for financial technology; a broad sector of inno-vative and emerging financial services. Examples include crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter, new online-based currencies likeBitcoin, virtual wallets, micro stock investment apps like Robin-hood, account aggregation and analysis services likeMint, paymentsplitting services like Splitwise, new mobile-optimized peer-peerpayment transfer apps like Venmo the list goes on. Replacingphysical charities, paper checks, and paper money, FinTech servicesare suitable to the digital times we are living in now, and areshaking existing banking infrastructure and international paymentstreams. Fintech craze as not simply a short lived phenomenon. Thetechnologies being developed now are going to have everlastingimpacts on the future financial and banking industry, and institu-tions need to adopt change or face destruction.

https://www.simple.com/https://about.holvi.com/fi/http://kickstarter.com/https://bitcoin.org/en/https://www.robinhood.com/https://www.robinhood.com/mint.comhttps://www.splitwise.com/https://venmo.com/http://nordicapis.com/how-apis-are-disrupting-the-way-we-think/


Advantages of Exposing a Bank with anAPI

Most banks lock customer data away in internal systems withvery limited access, restricted to tightly controlled channels. Thisstate of banking data accessibility is widely viewed by industrycommentators and even banks themselves as nothing short of atravesty, epitomizing the hegemony banking giants have held fora long period of time. According to Andres Wolberg-Stok, globalhead of emerging platforms and services at Citi, APIs present anopportunity to break a few windows to let free air and light in.

Whilst disrupters and innovators (especially challenger banks) willbe prone to hyperbola, the common consensus is that banks shouldopen up to provide APIs for a number of compelling reasons:

To enable consumer choice: There are many consumerswho want to be selective about banking products withouthaving to choose a single banking provider, instead simplypicking from a marketplace. APIs provide a mechanism toenable such selectivity of product. Supporting this notion isthe great deal of coverage to the narrowing of banking(where the portfolio of bank activities is restricted), as wellas the lack of trust millennials place in traditional bankingestablishments;

To unlock customer data: Internet banking has become thekey customer engagement point during the last two decades,but the digitization of the customer experience has madeit clear that the vast majority of banks consider this datato be a vault with only one entrance and two sets of keys theirs and the customers. This is juxtaposed with thewants and needs of customers, who are keen to exploit whatis essentially their data in any number of different ways:Personal Financial Management (PFM), credit checks, digitalnotarization, andmore. However, banks simply dont provide

http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-technology/fintech-glasnost-why-us-banks-are-opening-up-apis-to-outsiders-1075284-1.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow_banking


facilities for third-parties to work at the delegated authorityof the customer, forcing many third party solutions to use thecustomers internet banking login credentials and web scrap-ing to function (examples include Mint and Xero). Whilethis provides customers with useful solutions, by sharingtheir credentials with a third party they may actually breakthe terms and conditions of their banks internet bankingplatforms;

To unlock themselves: Anyone who has worked in the ITdepartment of a large bank will be familiar with the architec-ture and approach that typifies them extreme risk adversitywith large amounts of governance on top of legacy systemsandmonolithic applications. AnAPI-based architecture, builtincrementally with many small steps could help unlock anddecouple these architectures, making them more accessibleand providing an environment to foster innovation.

The core theme is that banks could be doing much more to opencustomer data up to new use cases and business models. Naturallythere are disrupters and innovators who are having some successtrumpeting down the walls of Jericho, and the Open Bank Project isclearly the poster boy for the open banking movement. Another ex-ample is Figo in Germany that delivers a single API that integrateswith the German FinTS/HBCI banking network. These initiativesshow what can be achieved without a standardized API network,but a lot of hard yards are involved in creating the solutions witha myriad of different integrations across the banking ecosystem.Such efforts could be significantly reduced if each bank offered astandardized suite of APIs.

What banks need to create are well-designed, standardized APIs,alongwith self-serving adoption processes completewith documen-tation, sandbox, simulated account structures, and more to quicklyget in the hands of developer users. Onboard more partnerships andmake it cheaper for FinTech startups to launch, and youve got a

http://mint.comhttps://www.xero.com/uk/https://openbankproject.com/https://figo.io


recipe for a banking API success.

In-Account App Marketplaces, otherProof of Concepts

A bank may chose to provide an API to allow developers to createadd-on services in a marketplace format, enabling the end userto customize their banking experience. The idea is that a bankcan provide an API and open app store (i.e. appstore.mybank.com)and allow users to pair certain apps with specific accounts. Win-win-win. Banks can acquire new partners, third party developersbring innovation, and customers are empowered with more choiceand customization. Its true that for banks, building an applicationmanager is no easy task, however, but API management solutionsexist to aid this process.

Already, services already exist that are making waves in openbanking and programmability:

Open Banking Project is a separate organization striving to reinventhow banks handle their data. The Open Bank Stack, written inScala and running on on the JVM, is secured with OAuth andis a semantic API vertical for the banking space. Theyve hadnumerous FinTech apps developed that tap into their API service.Examples include Savetastic, which pulls data from a bank tocalculate potential savings, and Social Finance application, whichenables account users to choose who they want to share accountdata with.

New Platforms Lead to Unexpected Innovation

Whats the similarity between a violin and a smartphone? In asession with Nordic APIs, Redfern, a composer at heart, argued thattheyre both platforms.

https://www.openbankproject.com/http://nordicapis.com/using-spark-to-create-apis-in-scala/http://nordicapis.com/how-to-control-user-identity-within-microservices/https://www.openbankproject.com/apps/http://savetastic.co/]https://socialfinance.openbankproject.com/


A violin and iPhone are both standardized interfaces. Yet, standard-ization doesnt inhibit musical creativity no more than the currentsmartphone design channels app developer curiosity and innova-tion. With platforms, weird things can happen, such a a rising classof Instagram entrepreneurs in Kuwait using the platform to selltheir sheep. In FinTech, the idea is that an open standard API couldrevolutionize banking with unprecendented consequences. XigniteCEO Stephane Dubois acknowledges that:

The role of technology in advancing the financialservice industry is more critical than ever before. Theuse of APIs by todays banks is becoming increasinglycommon as they help to drive speed and cost-effective-ness compared to traditional legacy systems.

Just as Facebook and other social media giants have become aplatform, Redfern believes that banks will inevitably becomeplatforms as well. The idea is that banks can push innovationand allow developers the ability to create brand new products, andthe Open Bank Project can allow banks to easily adopt an API. ToRedfern, open banking is made up of four distinct facets:

Open standards Open Source Open data options Open innovation

APIs are great for abstracting away aging IT systemswhich are barriers to innovation.We think banksneed to open up their infrastructures, and they shouldbe developing ecosystems so they can better respondto their customers and so they can compete better inthe market

http://qz.com/104499/a-rising-class-of-instagram-entrepreneurs-in-kuwait-is-selling-comics-make-up-and-sheep/http://qz.com/104499/a-rising-class-of-instagram-entrepreneurs-in-kuwait-is-selling-comics-make-up-and-sheep/http://opensource.com/business/15/4/open-standard-api-bankinghttp://opensource.com/business/15/4/open-standard-api-bankinghttp://www.xignite.com/http://nordicapis.com/what-exactly-is-an-api-platform-competitive-edge/


Its been proven that customers are interested in using new entrantservices rather than their own. According to the Millenilal Disrup-tion Index, 71% would rather go to the dentist than listen to whatbanks are saying proof to some that the industry is ripe forseismic change.

With PSD2, EU Banks Will be Open byLaw

On the European FinTech stage, forthcoming initiatives and regula-tions will both disrupt and foster innovation in the banking sectorof the API economy. The most significant of these is the PaymentServices Directive 2 (PSD2), a new regulation that will apply acrossthe European Union and is likely to result in a huge increase in thenumber of APIs for banking products. Making banks programmablewill significantly change the engagement model for accessing aconsumers account. What is less clear is how this may affect theconsumer themselves, including their level of access to the data(that in theory they own), and their ability to use their data in anyway they see fit. Thus, how will PSD2 and the growth of APIs forbanking affect personal data ownership?

Regulatory Impact on Personal DataRights

The rationale for standard banking APIs is clear, and there hasalways been the potential for a large bank to break cover andoffer a suite of APIs with access to customer data in advance ofits rivals. However, in the absence of this early mover encouragingother banks to offer APIs by way of market competition, regulatoryforces are now likely to coerce many into taking action.

http://www.millennialdisruptionindex.com/http://www.millennialdisruptionindex.com/http://ec.europa.eu/finance/payments/framework/index_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/finance/payments/framework/index_en.htm


PSD2 will force banks to allow third parties to access a givencustomers data, where that third-party is acting as a data consumeror a delegated authority: The EU describes these as third partyproviders (TPPs) [who] offer specific payment solutions or servicesto customers. As this could include making a payment on acustomers behalf, PSD2 grants third-parties considerable power.There is a great deal of debate how this might be implementedfrom a technical perspective, but an obvious solution for anyonefamiliar with the API economy is the use of APIs to facilitate access.Moreover, APIs could be coupled with a rich framework such asJSON Web Tokens under the guise of OpenID Connect to providestrong authentication and non-repudiation.

It is an oversimplification to say using APIs and OpenID Connectwould immediately provide the framework for implementing PSD2,and some of the logical architecture has already been framed: itincludes the introduction of Account Information Service Providersthat will provide a single view across multiple customer accounts.However, with the right governance framework these technologiescould provide the bedrock of a new open banking landscape,supporting a wide range of new entrants to the market.

The Open Banking (and Data) Landscape

The open banking landscape will allow customers to unlock theirdata and give delegated authority to their payment instruments,empowering them to share it with whomever they saw fit via anAPI. The value in this unlocked data isnt restricted to banking clearly other solution providers see much value in it. For example,frameworks like Figo will become much more commonplace withinitiatives like PSD2 and possibly draw in data sources that arentfinancial in nature, again via APIs.

Customers will have a single window on all their data, financial ornot: while solutions already exist in this space, such as Trunomi and

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5793_en.htm?locale=enhttp://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5793_en.htm?locale=enhttp://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5793_en.htm?locale=enhttp://nordicapis.com/api-security-oauth-openid-connect-depth/http://www.trunomi.com/


Mecco, who offer federated personal data stores and mechanismsto produce different views of an individuals personal data, theintegration effort is fraught with difficulty. With standardized APIsthere is an opportunity to view, understand, and control a unifiedview of our data.

The consolidation of our digital persona into a single constructis both a risk and an opportunity for individuals: a risk, becausewithout the right governance we offer ourselves up to solicitationon a huge scale, but an opportunity because we can enable thegenuine usage of our data for our own benefit, truly empoweringconsumers to make insightful decisions. With such insight at ourdisposal concepts like the Secco Aura could become a reality formore people than just Secco bank customers, with a broadcast ofinterests possible across many different service providers, financialor otherwise. Such possibilities are so relevant in the data spherethat large organizations like Visa Europe are researching them, withtheir innovation lab currently running their Me2B theme. HowardElsey, the innovation partner running this theme describes such apersonal data network as:

the connective tissue and nervous system of the dataeconomy. This has ramifications into all current areasof technical innovation, from big data to blockchain,identity, and IOT but is so interesting because ofthe impact that it will have in overcoming somethingthat computerization has managed lose the personalnature and trust in the relationship between businessand the individual and the disrespect of third partycompanies that exploit the value in an individuals datawithout returning value to the individual.*

https://meeco.me/http://www.seccobank.com/http://www.visaeuropecollab.com


In architectural terms, APIs underpin this framework as both thepersonal data source, federated into what Mecco calls the APIof me and the service delivery point. However, there is a newparadigm, the carrier for the broadcast of interests which, at facevalue looks and smells like massively distributed publish-subscribenetwork: the NATS technology for the personal data network. Itis to this network that both consumers and providers broadcasttheir interests with APIs providing the delivery mechanism fordata or services; requests can be serviced either directly from theconsumers data stores or via aggregators that pull together and

http://nats.io/


consolidate the data in a myriad of different views. Some initiativesalready exist that could grow into the backbone of this system, suchas the Open Mustard Seed project, but however it comes about,the network of me will make the personal API economy trulyrevolutionary.

https://idcubed.org/open-platform/platform/


Analysis: Implications of Open Banking

The opening of banking through APIs,whether through competitive pressure orregulatory enforcement, has massive im-plications across the data ecosystem:

for consumers it empowers theirability to access products and theirdata;

for solutions and services providersit allows them to engage with cus-tomers in a much more seamlessfashion;

for IoT it provides the network fordevices tomake autonomous actionsbased on an individuals preferences,wants, and needs.

It will take work to come to fruition but these are exciting times forus all as consumers. It will be fascinating to see how banks receivethe PSD2 regulation, and how this personal data network developsover the next couple of years. For developers, end users, and banks,making the bank programmable is a win-win-win.


For more on API business strategy check out Developing The APIMindset

http://nordicapis.com/api-ebooks/developing-the-api-mindset/http://nordicapis.com/api-ebooks/developing-the-api-mindset/

How APIs are StreamliningHealthcare

Managing healthcare records can be a painful experience, for bothpatients and doctors. Though extensive medical records are kept onpatients to be made available to new caregivers, accessing them isnot always an easy process.

In the UK, records are held digitally (usually General Practice (GP)records) yet some are still written by hand (details of hospital visits,etc.). And just to make matters even more complicated, the samedata types are at times held partly digitally and partly manually.

While online access to GP records is free, UK citizens can expect topay up to 50 for a hard copy of their medical files. And we havent

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How APIs are Streamlining Healthcare 45

even begun to talk about the additional charges for sick notes, copiesof immunization records, and documents for insurance companies.

All of which might well get you wondering, isnt there a betterway? In a word, yes.

Why Healthcare Needs APIs

As it stands today, across the world there are woeful inefficienciesin even the most developed and effective healthcare services. Takethis example experience:

1. Patient A reports to the doctor with fatigue. They are bookedin for a blood test which they attend. They hear nothing backabout it so call their local doctors surgery.

2. The secretary can tell them that their results are fine butnothing beyond that. Another blood test appointment isbooked. They have to call for results again only to find thatthe test came back with no conclusive results.

3. Patient A reports to a specialist in themeantimewho requiresanother blood test, only for Patient A to later find out thatthey are testing for the same thing as the first blood test theywent in for.

Already you can see the problem here (aside from our patientrunning out of blood): people and/or systems arent communicatingproperly, which leads to wasted resources and wasted time.

It would be easy to write this off as just how it goes, but giventhat we already know that getting systems to talk to each other issomething that APIs can do very well, were glad to see that theyare finally being integrated into the healthcare space.


Using APIs for Diagnosis

ApiMedic is an interesting service that provides a symptom checkerpatients can use to get an idea of what they might be suffering from.Of course, theres nothing particularly new about that; everyonenow uses a combination of WebMD and Google to find out whattheir symptoms mean.

Whats interesting is the way in which ApiMedic is being usedby hospitals around the world. Developers at Istanbul UniversityHospitals, for example, have embedded the system on their websiteto allow patients to book an appointment with the correct specialist.

While its true that there is a risk associated with relying on apatients initial judgement, its something that will almost certainlybe required as more pressure builds on the healthcare industry.

But it isnt just patients who can use APIs for diagnosis. To makequicker, easier andmore definitive diagnoses, doctors need themostcomplete EHR (electronic health records) data that they can gettheir hands on.

Doctorly provides an open API for EHR that professes to delivernearly real-time EHR data to apps built using the system. Doctorsoften complain about sluggish systems that, even when they dofinally produce the requested information, give them incompletedata.

It appears that APIs could be a valuable tool for improving ef-ficiency and coming up with diagnoses more quickly, for bothpatients and doctors, which could have important implicationswhen a few minutes could mean the difference between life anddeath.

http://apimedic.comhttps://www.doctrly.com


Improving Clarity for Patients

One of the biggest problems in the healthcare industry is communi-cation between patients and doctors. Doctors often use terminologythats unfamiliar to patients and whether its due to embarrassmentor information overload, patients dont always stop to make surethat they know everything they need to.

MedlinePlus Connect is a service, developed by the National In-stitute of Health and showcased by the U.S. National Library ofMedicine, that converts diagnosis, medication, and lab test codesinto a simple text description.

Clearly this is useful for doctors as it means that, provided they haveall their codes down pat, they can convert technical shorthand intoplain English. However, there are also ways in which this could alsobe very useful for patients.

Rather than trying to memorize all test results, diagnoses, or themedication they need (for when theyre trying to relay them toother doctors, chemists or even family members), they could tapa few codes into an app to get a detailed breakdown of the issues inlanguage that they can understand.

Another indirect advantage of using APIs is that it potentiallyfacilitates an easier and more intuitive interface through which pa-tients can access their results. Jay Manciocchi, writing for Mashery,suggests the following use of healthcare APIs:

Although seasoned developers are used to APIs withlong names that feature a challenging list of require-ments, modern APIs tend to use web-friendly ap-proaches, which are best known as RESTful (REpresen-tational State Transfer) and SOA (Service OrientatedArchitecture) architectural approaches. In healthcaresettings, these APIs allow you to pull-up aweb browserand type in a location like this to get some lab results:

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/connect/service.htmlhttp://www.mashery.com/blog/healthcare-apis-just-what-doctor-ordered


http://ABCclinic.org/patients/John_Doe/labs/glucose_-test/

If youve ever had to use an outdatedweb portal to access test resultsor make an appointment, youll already know that theyre rarely assimple as that hypothetical web address listed above.

Making Operations Easier for HealthProfessionals

As well as making things easier for patients, there are APIs outthere that are changing the way doctors and other healthcareprofessionals run their business.

Drchrono, for example, provides an API and SDK to help doctorsmanage their practice, bill their patients, and handle electronichealth records in one place. And, even though we have no expe-rience using it, its worth pointing out that it looks a heck of a lotnicer than anything weve ever seen doctors using:

Source drchrono

Because Drchrono places such emphasis on the importance oftheir developer program, they have a range of featured partnerswho integrate with their services. Among these are an electronicstethoscope attachment called Eko, an app that fills cancellationsautomatically called QueueDr and a self-scheduling system calledNextPatient.

Until recently, a big issue has been that doctors have had to usemultiple systems to manage their practice, make appointments, billpatients and so on. As a result, the process was fractured because itneeded to be carried out on a number of different platforms.

Two things in play right now are solving that problem:

https://www.drchrono.com/https://www.drchrono.com/api/http://www.doctorchrono.comhttps://ekodevices.comhttps://www.queuedr.com/https://nextpatient.co


1. One stop shop services that are capable of handling severaldifferent elements of running/managing a practice.

2. More API-driven apps that integrate with a core system.

Previously a service might integrate with, say, a practices billingsystem but not its appointment functions. This doesnt necessarilymean that the service is totally useless, but it does impose limita-tions on how effective it can be.

As services like Drchrono, which take a more holistic and pro-grammable approach to running a doctors office begin to emerge,so does the possibility of integrating other services to make thewhole process quicker and more effective.

The Trouble with Using APIs in aHealthcare Setting

In the UK, and elsewhere in the world, the healthcare services arepublicly funded. While you might expect this to mean that effi-ciency and cost-effectiveness would be of paramount importance,the opposite is often trueas is often the case with open datagovernment initiatives.

Where public money is concerned, its usually a case of if it aintbroke, dont fix it. Even though many, like Kenneth Mandl andIsaac Kohane, argue that actually it is broken:

This myth continues to justify soaring IT costs, bur-densome physicianworkloads, and stagnation in innovationwhile doctors are becoming increasingly bound todocumentation and communication products that arefunctionally decades behind those they use in theircivilian life.

http://nordicapis.com/lean-mean-open-data-machines/http://nordicapis.com/lean-mean-open-data-machines/http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1203102


Crucially, they also argue that a few companies controlling muchof the market remain entrenched in legacy approaches, threaten-ing other vendors viability. However, things cant remain the sameforever, and were finally starting to see the healthcare industrybegin to embrace new technology.

In their article on the untapped potential of APIs in the healthcarespace, Harvard Business Review identified four main needs toaccelerate their adoption:

1. Obvious financial incentives to encourage data exchange2. Address privacy and security concerns, which is an ongoing

concern for anyone transmitting data using the cloud3. Development of industry standard APIs with transparent

costs4. Deal with issues relating to culture, such as the fear of losing

control, patient-doctor relations, and workflow

Provided pilots and policies continue to be lined up to tackle theseissues, theres no reason why we wont see even wider adoption ofAPIs and other technological advances to shake up the healthcarespace.

Making Things Easier for Researchers

Writing for Mashery, Jay Manciocchi points out another benefit this time an indirect one that APIs in the healthcare space offer:

Modern APIs also offer the standardization of data.Each field must use consistent units and terminology,which can be challenging, given the information foundin most healthcare recordsClinical decision support,public health, and research depend on quantifiabledata, which APIs lead to.

https://hbr.org/2015/12/the-untapped-potential-of-health-care-apishttp://www.mashery.com/blog/healthcare-apis-just-what-doctor-ordered


If anything is going to speed up the adoption of APIs and theInternet of Things (IoT) in the healthcare space, this is it. Successfulresearch leads to pilots, which leads to results, which leads toprogress. Along the way, most of these activities also generatefunding.

If were really going to get cynical about it, the financial impactthat using APIs in the healthcare space has on potential fundingopportunities is one of the key reasons people and organizationswill be more open to adopting them.


The Future of Healthcare and APIs

The most exciting thing about APIs inrelation to healthcare is that they suggest atime, maybe not too far from our own, inwhich patient information is truly joinedup.

Imagine an ambulance arriving on thescene of a car crash and being able to seetheir entire medical history. No more need to check for medicalert bracelets, organ donor cards, or evidence of pacemakers andallergies. Medics will instantly know that they need to be extracareful moving them because of a chronic back pain condition andthat they cant give the patient any morphine because they reactedbadly to it during a previous hospital stay.

But how, and where, is all of that data stored? Several expertshave suggested blockchain technology as a potential solution, withdecentralized electronic health records available to all healthcareservices that require it.

Healthcare expert Peter Nichol suggests that that each patientwould be provided with a code and an address to unlock theirdata and enable access, with contributors to records being providedwith another signature that combines with the patients hash toauthenticate their own access. All of which sounds just as, if notmore, secure than the current system.

Its true that a world ofmore freely accessible healthcare data comeswith plenty of worries of its own such as how to make sure thatconfidential medical records never fall into the hands of employers,journalists or even unauthorized family members. Other risks arisewith the involvement of healthcare startups that may not abide byproper protocols, as is the case with ongoing into Theranos, theblood testing startup now under investigation.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/healthcare-can-the-blockchain-optimize-and-secure-it-1452624836https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blockchain-technology-solution-healthcare-peter-b-nicholhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/business/dealbook/theranos-under-pressureas-inquiries-mount.html?_r=0


Provided that the space can negate these concerns, making health-care more programmable will come with limitless possibility forprogress, growth, and overall social welfare.

APIs Are Evolving The B2BLandscape

Phone, fax, and email. Archaic methods of communication are stillthe bane of corporate partnership exchanges. 700,000 fax machineswere purchased between 2011 & 2012, and to this day, practitionersin healthcare and law adamantly believe fax to be the most pro-tected form for sending documents.

Partners need to securely and reliably do business, and old processescan meet intransigence, even in the face of large tech momentum.Some of the traditional processes like email are here tostay. Nevertheless, partner integrations and information exchangeis evolving, becoming more automated and programmable. Cloudcomputing is creating an explosion in the digital world, replacing

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APIs Are Evolving The B2B Landscape 55

EDI (Electronic Data Exchange), phone, fax, and email with theHoly Grail for partner integrations RESTful API enabled B2Bcommunication.

But B2B processes are inherently slow to evolve such complexsystems cant possibly possess the agility of a startup to quicklyadopt and test new methods. The fact is that thousands of con-nections and industry checkpoints are barring innovation in thesecomplex corporate environments.

With these realities and forecasts in mind, what do we need inorder to increase API awareness? How can we initiate industry mo-mentum? The answer lies in properly communicating a superiorbusiness value. This means revisiting how APIs are discussed with the goal to describe an inherently subject matter so that APIscan rise above the constraints of D2D (Developer to Developer)communication, and enter the everyday B2B (Business to Business)dialogue.

In With The New, Out With (Some) Old

Just because old processes are ebbing doesntmean they will fade forever. Sumit Sharma ofMulesoft predicts the future will see API com-munication replacing some EDI modes, increas-ing interoperability throughout the B2B world.Though in the rear view mirror, phone, fax, email and EDI the transfer of data from one computer system to another bystandardized message formatting are still huge and necessaryplayers in international business.

http://www.edibasics.com/what-is-edi/http://nordicapis.com/what-makes-an-agile-api/https://www.youtube.com/embed/9_gL6FY55IQ

APIs Are Evolving The B2B Landscape 56

The Clothing Chain Example

To hone in on a real world example, its estimated that Li &Fung, a global supply chain manager, processes orders for 80%of the clothing produced in China for the US. They handle thespecificati

tracking the growth of the api economy

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