APIs to Always-On: Open Banking, Embedded Finance & AI Platform Engineering | FIS, HSBC Innovation Banking, BNY | The Fintech Show #159

Michelle Henrich, FIS, Ad Van Der Poel, HSBC Innovation Banking, and Carl Slabicki, BNY, show how APIs, CodeConnect-style marketplaces, and 24/7 cross-border payments are reshaping banking—using open banking, embedded finance, and AI-driven platforms to link legacy systems to real-time customer journeys.

APIs are presented as the backbone of modern financial services and Henrich opens by explaining how APIs let systems talk to each other securely, automate complex work, and free developers to build faster. Banks have used APIs for years across online and mobile channels, ATMs and teller systems, and behind the scenes for risk, fraud and CRM integration. In her view, platforms like CoConnect, FIS’s developer experience and API marketplace, democratises access to financial capabilities by letting teams explore documentation, test in sandbox, and accelerate go-live without heavy hand-holding.

Slabicki focuses on a big industry shift: an always-on, 24/7 operating model that spans global borders which means instant payments at any hour, supported through direct clearing or correspondent partners, plus real-time visibility into flows, balances and liquidity. He notes the operational follow-through this requires seven-day accounting, continuous interest calculations and intraday liquidity management. He also points to enabling rails and adjacent services (FX, and experiments across blockchain, stablecoins and tokenised deposits) that must be bridged thoughtfully with legacy infrastructure. Technology is only half the job as banks also need to coach clients on adoption and automation when human staffing isn’t available around the clock.

From a market-dynamics angle, Henrich ties APIs to open banking and the rise of fintech. Younger consumers are increasingly meeting their financial needs through third-party apps; APIs lower barriers for new entrants, drive more choice and sharpen pricing. She frames APIs not just as integration plumbing, but as a catalyst for innovation, and a path from open banking today toward broader open finance tomorrow.

Embedding is the next act and as Van Der Poel argues payments, and soon, broader financial products like insurance and fund management, should show up exactly where customers already are. The bank’s role is to integrate APIs into clients’ core businesses, not to assume the bank is the core with that orientation supports context-rich experiences online and on the high street alike.

Turning inward, Slabicki describes how BNY builds for speed and quality by centralising repeatable capabilities, KYC, billing, onboarding, risk, under a platform operating model and exposing them via reusable services/APIs. This “do it once, do it best” approach removes duplication across lines of business and raises standards enterprise-wide. He also sees AI as an accelerant across the software lifecycle: drafting user stories, scaffolding code, generating stronger test cases and assisting test execution—improving both pace and robustness.

All three emphasise that API integrations aren’t “one-and-done.” Henrich explains how clients now assemble best-in-class solutions from multiple providers, which pushes banks to break monolithic systems into componentised, well-documented API products aligned to real customer journeys. Crucially, banks should hide orchestration complexity behind those APIs and uses account opening as an example: a cohesive flow that spans customer search and creation, KYC, entitlements and account setup which should be delivered as a simplified, guided journey rather than a tangle of endpoints.

On practical outcomes, Van Der Poel highlights how HSBC Innovation Banking (formerly SVB UK) now taps HSBC’s mature open-banking APIs to give clients quicker connections to accounting packages like Xero and QuickBooks and then extend into richer use cases. Henrich and Van Der Poel also point to virtual accounts: fund managers can gain near real-time insight into payment flows across portfolio companies, and fintechs can stand up wallet-like propositions for their customers which are all powered by APIs and surfaced through developer-friendly marketplaces such as CodeConnect.

APIs have moved from “integration method” to strategic lever. They enable an always-on, embedded, multi-provider financial ecosystem; they demand strong orchestration and developer experience; and, with platform operating models and AI in the toolchain, they help banks and fintechs deliver better products, faster, at global scale.