The EU’s PSD2 (second Payment Services Directive) specifically introduces the concept of Third Party Providers (TPPs) that are allowed to interact with your bank account on your behalf either to collect/aggregate information or to initiate payments. These of course require an API to do so, but unfortunately, within the same piece of legislation, the TLA ‘API’ unfortunately suffers a namespace collision with “Authorised Payment Institution”, a lesser kind of online banking institution a step below the full EMI (Electronic Money Institution).

I’m currently heading a project to set up such an institution so I’m into this stuff up to my neck.