Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has become the first bank in the country to launch an Application Programming Interface (API) developer portal.
The RBC Developers portal will allow eligible, external software developers, industry innovators and clients to access select RBC APIs.
RBC Digital Technology senior vice president Sumit Oberai said: “Across other industries we’ve seen the transformational effect of APIs.
“By providing external developers, industry innovators and clients with access to select RBC APIs, we have the opportunity to increase connectivity, create new tools and experiences for clients, and enable open and innovative collaboration to improve the future of banking.”
APIs allow applications to talk to other applications. This communication layer allows third party applications secured access to select data and capabilities from RBC. Once registered and approved to use the RBC Developers™ portal, external parties will be able to browse and learn about the APIs offered and build, test and deploy their applications using these APIs.
RBC is initially offering five API packages in the portal. Each API package delivers the data elements, orchestration and business logic required to deliver the end to end business process. Additional API packages will be added in the future.
Credit card catalog API – Provides access to credit card rates and fees through a business oriented interface. These values are organized in terms of line of business, product family, and individual products
Minimum down payment API – Calculates the minimum down payment required for a given purchase price of a home
Branch locator API – Accepts postal code or keyword search term and returns the address and hours of operation of the closest branch, or a list of the closest branches
Amortization schedule API – Calculates the number of payments associated with a mortgage amount, amortization period, interest details and payment details
Safety deposit box inventory API – Provides safety deposit box information at a specified branch