APIContext partners with Akamai to expand advanced API monitoring adoption. Learn more >

API Metrics Fintech, Jan 25–Feb 1: Open Banking UK Production

Something of interest

In Open Banking – UK – Production API metrics category, Nationwide has a degree of middle table respectability coming in at 19 out of 40 with a Green Zone CASC score of 8.36 and a 100% pass rate. It could do better, but it’s doing OK.

But, as we discussed last week, in Open Banking – UK – Sandbox, Nationwide has been taking the overall wooden spoon amongst financial APIs. And here’s the thing: it’s the same four endpoints in both cases.

API Metrics Fintech, Jan 25–Feb 1 Open Banking UK Production 1

Everything looks fine for the production endpoints. OAuth Access Token client_credentials could do with being perked up a bit, but the pass rates (100%) and outlier percentages are fine as far as API metrics are concerned.

API Metrics Fintech, Jan 25–Feb 1 Open Banking UK Production 2

The sandbox endpoints don’t quite 100%, but it is the median latency and outlier percentage that is absolutely killing these API metrics endpoints. And this has been going on now for several weeks.

This does look as though not enough attention is being paid to the sandbox. Now, people might say “It’s only a sandbox” or “Nobody uses it” or “It’s just an off-the-shelf bank-in-a-box.” But none of that matters.

A sandbox should be easier than a production environment. If all your endpoints in the sandbox have had median latency of about 30 s for several weeks, something is seriously amiss. The sandbox’s performance should, ideally, be as close as possible to that of the production environment not just in what the endpoints return, but also in how quickly and reliably they do it.

It’s certainly about time that a good hard look was taken at the Nationwide sandbox and just what is going on with those latencies. Because if they can do it for production – and they can – Nationwide can do it for the sandbox.

Fintech API Metrics: Overall Performance

Week Ending 1 February 2021

Category

Organization

CASC score

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

RadarRelay

9.38

Fintech

Stripe

9.28

Open Banking: PSD2

Railsbank

9.61

Open Banking UK: API Sandbox

Starling Bank (Sandbox)

9.39

Open Banking UK: Production

Creation Cards

9.34

Open Banking UK: Open Data

Bank of Ireland

9.66

Bank of Ireland in the Open Banking – UK – Open Data API metrics category takes the overall title again this week with a CASC score of 9.66, down from 9.71 last week. A CASC score of over 9.00 is very good and one of 9.50 or more exceptional. Two out of the six categories are headed by organization with a CASC score of 9.50 or more this week. Sustaining a CASC score of >9.25 over a period of several weeks is a good showing and congratulations to those organizations that achieved it. All categories are headed by an API with CASC score of 9.28 or more, which is a very acceptable level of performance.

Fintech API Metrics: Latency

Week Ending 1 February 2021

Category

Organization

Median Latency

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Kraken

224 ms

Fintech

Stripe

325 ms

Open Banking: PSD2

Railsbank

105 ms

Open Banking UK: API Sandbox

Starling Bank (Sandbox)

144 ms

Open Banking UK: Production

Creation Cards

157 ms

Open Banking UK: Open Data

HSBC

87 ms

HSBC in Open Banking – UK – Open Data API metrics again takes the overall title again with a median latency of 87 ms, the same as last week. An important caveat: medians can be misleading! An API might have a fast median latency but produce many slow outliers. These won’t affect the median, but they mean that users can experience many calls that were unacceptably slow. So just being fast isn’t everything. You have to be reliable too if you want to have good APIs and get a high CASC score!

Fintech API Metrics: Worst Overall Quality

Week Ending 1 February 2021

Category

Organization

CASC score

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Cryptocompare

7.03

Fintech

Square (Sandbox)

6.70

Open Banking: PSD2

Deutsche Bank

7.63

Open Banking UK: API Sandbox

Nationwide (Sandbox)

2.88

Open Banking UK: Production

Creation Card (Auth)

5.32

Open Banking UK: Open Data

HSBC

7.71
Nationwide (Sandbox) in the Open Banking – UK – Sandbox API metrics category takes the overall wooden spoon again with a CASC score of 2.88, up from 2.36 last week. See you again in a week as we plunge further into February. Also don’t forget to look out for our monthly report for January and the weekly and monthly non-financial API reports. We will also be publishing special reports on the State of the APIs in the 2020, so that’s something else to look forward to!

Do more with Fintech API monitoring!

If you're new to API monitoring, you can learn about our comprehensive features for testing, monitoring, security and performance and sign up for a free trial account.

Share

Request A Demo

Find A Slot To See A Demo Or Speak To One Of Our Support Specialists

Ready To Start Monitoring?

Want to learn more? Check out our technical knowledge base, or our sector by sector data, or even our starters guide to the API economy. So sign up immediately, without a credit card and be running your first API call in minutes.

Related Posts

Join Us Now!

Join the 100s of companies relying on APIContext.