Open Banking to Open Finance: FIS and HSBC Innovation Banking on the API Shift

Michelle Henrich, FIS,  and Ad Van Der Poel, HSBC Innovation Banking, centers on how open banking, and soon open finance, is reshaping the industry.

Consumers want financial products that are easier to use and that reflect their values, such as diversity and sustainability, and meeting that demand requires banks to share customer-permissioned data with trusted third parties, and the practical way to do that is through APIs. Hendrich and Van Der Poel describe how those APIs lower barriers to entry for fintechs, startups, and even non-financial brands, which in turn increases competition, expands product choice, and sharpens pricing.

The speakers frame APIs as more than plumbing and position them as a catalyst for change which speeds up innovation cycles and sitting at the center of today’s open-banking model. Looking ahead, both Hendrich and Van Der Poel point to open finance, where API-enabled access extends beyond payments and current accounts into areas such as savings, lending, and investments. That progression promises broader, more connected customer experiences—provided firms keep consent, security, and clear value at the core.

Van Der Poel explains the journey from Silicon Valley Bank’s long-standing use of APIs largely by leaning on market standards and partners to the present, as part of HSBC. HSBC is among the UK’s leading open-banking institutions and has built a mature suite of APIs. Van Der Poel notes that tapping into this stack has strengthened HSBC Innovation Banking’s proposition: clients can connect their banking directly into internal systems and common accounting packages like Xero and QuickBooks, reducing manual work and making reconciliation faster and cleaner.

For banks and fintechs, the message is pragmatic. APIs aren’t just an integration choice; they’are a route to faster distribution, simpler onboarding, and products that better match customer expectations. Hendrich and Van Der Poel underline that firms who treat APIs as a strategic capability, rather than a compliance checkbox, are best positioned as the market shifts from open banking to open finance.