Ozone API is the leading standards based platform that handles the complexity of open banking, making it easier for any financial institution to meet regulatory and commercial requirements for an open API. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Ozone API General Manager for North America, Eyal Sivan, to learn more about the company.
Eyal Sivan’s Background
What is Eyal Sivan’s background? Sivan said:
“I started out in IT as a true nineties cliche, by founding a website design agency out of my parents’ basement. Eventually, the firm expanded into an office and began offering web-based application development and consulting, under the name Eldan Software. At its height, it grew to eleven employees and an annual turnover of over $1 million.”
“Post-exit, I joined CIBC, a major Canadian bank, where I spent 15 years as part of the Enterprise Architecture team. It was there that I developed my fascination for the power of APIs in financial services and, eventually, discovered open banking. After leaving the bank to pursue the space, I went on to take several roles leading open banking at prominent API management and specialist fintech firms before ultimately joining Ozone API.”
“As part of my personal efforts to drive advancements in open banking worldwide, I created Mr. Open Banking. Under this persona, I host the only podcast dedicated to the open banking community, interviewing the key leaders, innovators and influencers who are driving the emergence of open banking around the globe. Since its launch in 2020, the podcast has grown to over 90 thousand listeners, and in 2022 I was recognized as the number one Open Finance Influencer globally by Open Future World.”
“I’m the General Manager for North America at Ozone API, responsible for expanding our global position as a leading open banking solution provider to the United States and Canada. I recently spearheaded Ozone API’s partnership with Bespin Global US, which will enable seamless, end-to-end compliance for financial institutions with minimal operational burden, as well as providing the tools necessary to move beyond compliance when they are ready.”
More About Open Banking
What is Open Banking and what is its level of adoption in the US today? Sivan shared:
“Open banking is a movement towards the adoption of common, shared standards for the secure exchange of personal financial data between banks, FIs and third parties, all based on user consent.”
“It is giving customers more control of their data and accounts and in doing so laying a foundation for both disruption and significant opportunity in the banking industry and beyond. The banks and financial institutions that grab this opportunity will more effectively meet their customers’ needs and create platforms for faster, lower cost innovation, partnerships and growth.”
Core Services
What does Ozone API do; how do its products and features serve as benefits to Open Banking? Sivan explained:
“Ozone API is a global fintech company founded by the team that wrote the UK open banking standards. We know the standards space better than anyone and continue to shape the development of standards around the world, driving the development of the open banking ecosystem.”
“Specifically, the Ozone API Platform enables banks and financial institutions to expose standards-compliant open APIs, based on any of the established standards around the world, with all the tools necessary for success. We remove the complexity and cost of developing and maintaining APIs to continuously evolving open banking global standards; enable rapid compliance with open banking regulations; and provide the tools to go beyond by delivering value added and commercial APIs to grow revenues.”
Challenges Faced
What are any challenges in Open Banking recently (and how is the industry and Ozone API in particular overcoming those challenges)? Sivan acknowledged:
“Ozone API launched because the founders identified a challenge in open banking. In the UK, banks were finding it incredibly costly and complex to build their own APIs in line with the mandated standards, a pattern that is repeated in one region after another as open banking continues to spread. With our Ozone API platform, we help financial institutions to overcome these challenges by delivering high performing, standards-compliant open APIs with the tools to easily handle all the complexity of open banking.”
“More recently, as more regions have implemented open banking regulations and standards, a new challenge has emerged: global interoperability. The world’s financial systems must work together seamlessly, enabling consumers and businesses to share data and conduct transactions across borders without friction. Whilst a single global standard is highly improbable in anything other than the very long term, I expect 2025 to bring some moves towards global interoperability. We already have FAPI establishing itself as the de facto security protocol, and it is likey we’ll see interoperability efforts expand to data sets.”
“At the same time, we’ll see the benefits from domestic open banking standards evolving in different and more innovative ways as they develop more capabilities around payments, embedded finance and across broader product sets. In fact, in the short term, this divergence and evolution should accelerate innovation for those who can cope with the complexity.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Sivan noted:
“The continuous evolution of our platform is one of our core USPs. Ozone API technology stays up to date with all ongoing updates every time a new version of any standard is published, including all major open banking and open finance standards around the world. Maintaining our platform to ensure it remains current and complliant with the lastest standards is a major differentiator.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Sivan affirmed:
“There are three key elements of our offering that stand us apart. First is our expertise. We were founded by the team that wrote the UK open banking standards – we know the standards space better than anyone. We continue to work with central banks, regulators and large financial institutions globally to shape the development of standards around the world. Second, but linked to the above, is the simple fact that our platform is the most up to date with global open banking development.”
“Our technology stays up to date with all ongoing updates every time a new version of any standard is published, including all major open banking and open finance standards around the world. Third, we are expressly built based on API-first and engineer-friendly principles, which makes incorporating our platform into existing technology stacks very straightforward. This means both partners and financial institutions can easily integrate our technology into their existing solutions in whichever way makes sense to them.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the Ozone API’s future company goals in North America? Sivan concluded:
“The journey towards regulated open banking in North America has been something of a roller coaster, but it is worth noting that some form of market-driven open banking has already existed in the region for decades. While the U.S. and Canada are taking somewhat different paths toward regulation, they share this market-driven origin driven by the demands of savvy digital consumers, demands that will persist regardless of regulatory uncertainty. At Ozone, our goal is to support the growth, evolution and adoption of open banking throughout North America, whether driven by regulatory requirements, market activity focused on innovation, or a healthy mixture of the two. Wherever North American open banking leads, Ozone API will be there to help our partner and customers embrace it.”
