What Banks Can Learn from Good Vendors: Developer Lessons From Modern API Platforms

As banks modernize legacy systems and adopt the next generation of payment technology, it is crucial that they build and maintain developer portals that are accessible, detailed, and useful. Fintechs, some of which launched more than a decade ago, utilized developer portals to scale products and attract talent. Traditional FIs have met some of the high standards those fintechs set over that period, but work remains. 

New technology, such as real-time payments, programmable money, and agentic commerce, is changing how consumers transact and rewriting the expectations they have of their bank. A robust developer portal serves as a key distribution channel of financial products and signals a willingness to tackle challenging and impactful technology problems. This helps ensure that FIs remain top of wallet and on the bleeding edge of innovation. 

Key questions discussed in this report:

• What technological changes influence the approach banks are taking to build developer portals and communities?
• What standards and characteristics enabled developer portals built and maintained by fintechs to thrive?
• How do newer developer portals established by financial institutions compare with their fintech counterparts?

Companies Mentioned:

0Auth, Adyen, Bank of America, Discord, JPMorgan, Plaid, Stack Overflow, Stripe, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, YouTube