Jakarta. State-owned bank BNI recently said that it was focusing on enhancing its application programming interface -- commonly shortened as API -- services. The bank said that the improved API helped BNI to provide digital payment solutions that are well-integrated with the customer’s systems.

Corina Leyla Karnalies, the director for digital and integrated transaction banking at BNI, said that the digital business era in Indonesia has grown rapidly. “The API BNI services allow us to serve our customers by providing various digital payment solutions that are agile, secure, and easy,” Corina was quoted as saying in a recent press statement.

BNI first had API services in place back in 2017, during which the first service was a virtual account. In 2019, the bank developed the BNI API digital services portal. This aimed to make it easier for potential customers to learn more about BNI’s API, thus paving the way for faster integration via a sandbox feature. In 2021, BNI officially has a total of 280 API services that have been licensed by the Financial Services Authority (OJK). The bank became the “first mover” to implement Bank Indonesia’s national payment AI standards the following year, according to the press release. 

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BNI also got the approval to implement SNAP for virtual account & transfer (intrabank) services in the same year.

"BNI has API services to facilitate customers in transactions, including disbursement, collection, payment, account information, and digital account opening," Corina said.

According to the 2023-2024 roadmap, BNI plans to complete its API services to facilitate SCF transactions, bank guarantees, remittances, BI Fast, cardless withdrawal & transaction creation on BNI Cash Management (BNIDirect). API today has more than 4,000 customers generating a total of 295 million API hits 115 million in transaction items. The transactions as of Oct. 2023 are also worth Rp 609.6 trillion.

"The BNI customer onboarding process has also been made easier with the API digital services portal which accommodates API services provided by BNI," Corina said.

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BNI API Services New Features
Tons of new features are now available on the BNI API digital services portal including an increasingly complete sandbox. This lets customers test the BNI API, and a software development kit (SDK) to make it easier for customers to design applications. They are also available in several programming languages (Java, PHP, Python).

There is also a postman collection which makes it easier for customers to try out by simply importing the postman collection provided by BNI into the customer's postman system. BNI API also has “auto-populate”, enabling customers to fill in sample data automatically. The API SNAP feature is also available on the BNI API digital services portal.

"We will continue to develop this new feature. We are proactive in analyzing what our customers need. We are also working on serving all those needs through one BNI API integrated solution platform," Corina said.

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