Kaleyra and Epiphany launch first open banking hub in Italy
Full-stack digital banking platform Epiphany and cloud provider for messaging services Kaleyra have launched the first open banking hub in Italy.
Banks using Kaleyra’s platform access to three of Epiphany’s ‘readymade’ apps
The platform is supposed to give banks a space to launch second Payment Services Directive (PSD2)-compliant products, speeding up innovation and app deployment by getting rid of regulatory roadblocks.
The partnership, signed this past July, will give banks using Kaleyra’s platform access to three of Epiphany’s ‘readymade’ apps: Instapay, an instant payment service via mobile, Account Aggregation, a single API with 100% coverage of the Italian market, and InstaCredit, a real-time microcredit solution.
These three initial apps, which are PSD2 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)-compliant, will soon be accompanied by more in the coming months.
“In other words, this open banking hub brings everything under one roof; communication services and apps, allowing banks to capitalise on the open banking phenomenon through direct engagement,” the companies said in a statement.
The hub is also designed to increase competition in Italy, reduce implementation costs and avoid “disintermediation by third party processors (TPPs) all together”.
Kaleyra MD Alex Milani and Epiphany CEO and co-founder, Paolo Spadafora, said in the joint statement: “Following the implementation of PSD2, banks now need to ensure they are in position to offer competitive services to improve the consumers’ experience: from safe and quick transactions via mobile, to the access of small loans, to the transfer of peer-to-peer (P2P) money whilst you chat.”
Milani and Spadafora calculated that if open banking offers Europe a 60 billion-euro opportunity, the impact on the level of investments in Italy will exceed €3.5 billion ($3.9bn). They project the products generating the most value from these investments will be in the lending area (55%), digital payments (15%) and bank accounts (20%).
Epiphany and Kaleyra confirm they will be attending the Italian innovation and payments conference Salone dei Pagamenti (‘Salon of Payments’) in Milan in November, where they say they will “explore the new offer in more detail”.
