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API.expert Weekly Banking API Analysis: Coinbase

This Week’s Banking API Highlights

  • Tide in the Open Banking API – UK – Production category takes the overall title again this week with a CASC score of 9.84, down from 9.85 last week.
  • HSBC in the Open Banking API – UK – Open Data category takes the overall title again with a median latency of 94 ms, down from 95 ms last week.
  • Barclays (Sandbox Auth) in the Open Banking API – UK – Sandbox category takes the overall bottom spot again this week with a CASC score of 4.74, down from 5.24 last week.
  • We take a good, hard look at how Coinbase is doing right now.

Something of interest

Coinbase was the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States by trading volume in March 2021 and they went public on NASDAQ in April, so they are very much the poster child of cryptocurrency exchanges right now.

We have added several Coinbase banking API endpoints so they will be appearing regularly on the API.expert table going forward. How did they do last week?

api expert banking api coinbase 1

Coinbase achieved mid-table respectability, 10th out of 20, which is OK, with a CASC banking API score of 8.25, in the Green Zone, although you might hope that such a big brand might hit a bit more strongly. They have 100% availability are the fastest API in the category, so a good base to build on.

It’s going to be inconsistency in the latency that’s letting them down. Let’s take a closer look.

api expert banking api coinbase 2

As we can see, there’s big variations between regions and within regions. This is dragging down Coinbase’s CASC banking API score, but, more importantly, it’s dragging down the quality of service it’s providing to its users. As we often say here, you want, where possible for all users, to experience the performance.

That’s why you need to be actively monitoring your banking API from different clouds and regions so that you know whether your IBM Cloud North America users are experiencing an additional 71 ms of latency compared to AWS Europe.

Coinbase is a global company. It can’t claim that all of its users are in one region. And it can’t even say that everyone is using its app hosted, say, in AWS North America.

After all, you can be using the banking API from anywhere (we are), for instance. Your most serious users aren’t going to be using the mobile app. And they are certainly going to care that Google South Asia is 246 ms slower than AWS Europe.

api expert banking api coinbase 3

Coinbase is pretty good on DNS Lookup Time, but they should be able to hit 4 ms or 12 ms everywhere and something is up with Azure South Asia.

api expert banking api coinbase 4

This is reflected the TCP Connection Time. There is definitely something odd in Azure South Asia. And in trading, every millisecond counts. So why is Oceania 10 ms faster for TCP Connection Time than Google North America?

api expert banking api coinbase 5

Again, for Handshake Time, Azure South Asia is anomalously slow. This is the kind of intelligence you only get from active monitoring your banking API. Everything after all might look fine from AWS.

api expert banking api coinbase 6

But with Process Time, Azure South Asia is much quicker than AWS South Asia and Google South Asia. And it is not a case that Europe and North America are just faster than other regions. Google East Asia and IBM Cloud East Asia are up to 200 ms faster for Process Time than Azure East Asia and AWS East Asia. That’s a lot.

If Coinbase wants to improve its CASC banking API score, looking at how to ensure that, as far as possible (and clearly with such significant variations between clouds and regions, there is much optimization of configuration to be done) users from different cloud locations receive the same  performance will go a long way – and more importantly ensure that users aren’t missing out on the best possible prices when making a trade.

Banking API Analysis: Overall Performance

Week Ending 26 April 2021

Category

Organization

CASC score

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Radar Relay

9.42

Fintech

Square (Sandbox)

9.49

Open Banking: PSD2

Railsbank

9.81

Open Banking UK: API Sandbox

Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox Auth)

9.80

Open Banking UK: Production

Tide

9.84

Open Banking UK: Open Data

Coutts

9.80

Tide in the Open Banking – UK – Production category takes the overall title again this week with a CASC score of 9.84, down from 9.85 last week.

Banking API Analysis: Latency

Week Ending 26 April 2021

Category

Organization

Median Latency

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Coinbase

205 ms

Fintech

Stripe

321 ms

Open Banking: PSD2

Railsbank

99 ms

Open Banking UK: API Sandbox

Royal Bank of Scotland (Sandbox)

149 ms

Open Banking UK: Production

Tide

149 ms

Open Banking UK: Open Data

HSBC

94 ms

HSBC in the Open Banking – UK – Open Data category takes the overall title again with a median latency of 94 ms, down from 95 ms last week.

Banking API Analysis: Worst Overall Quality

Week Ending 26 April 2021

Category

Organization

CASC score

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Coinlore

6.49

Fintech

Open Bank Project (Sandbox)

7.67

Open Banking: PSD2

Nobody under 8.00!

Open Banking UK: API Sandbox

Barclays (Sandbox)

4.74

Open Banking UK: Production

Yorkshire Building Society

6.54

Open Banking UK: Open Data

HSBC

6.49
Barclays (Sandbox Auth) in the Open Banking – UK – Sandbox category takes the overall bottom spot again this week with a CASC score of 4.74, down from 5.24 last week.

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