While Britain reports 17 million successful connections and the UAE is implementing a data exchange infrastructure, the global fintech market has realized an unpleasant truth. It turned out that writing regulations and opening up APIs is just the tip of the iceberg.
Today, the main enemy of innovation is the invisible, exhausting work of maintaining API stability. Why are banking systems bursting at the seams under the onslaught of fintechs and how to turn the technical burden into profit? We will figure it out in our interview.
Artem Lyashanov talks about how to go this way without critical losses.
Expert context
Artem Lyashanov is a financial technology strategist specializing in the transformation of banking structures into open ecosystems. His vision of Open Banking goes beyond the simple implementation of technologies; he considers APIs as a critical operational artery of a modern bank.
With a deep understanding of the internal processes of both large institutions and agile fintech startups, Artem focuses on the main challenge of the industry — overcoming the resource barrier that separates declarative innovations from real market advantage.
The trap of a one-time project and the resource wall
Journalist: Artem, today Open Banking is talked about as a mandatory standard. However, you claim that it is after this stage that the most difficult things begin. What is the main trap for banks that embark on this path?
Artem Lyashanov: The main trap is to perceive integrations as a one-time project. They launched, tested, reported, and supposedly the job is done. But in fact, the real pressure on the bank begins precisely when working with APIs turns into a daily operational routine.
Journalist: So the problem is not in the ideas, but in the banal lack of hands to implement them?
Artem Lyashanov: Exactly. The problem is not a lack of ideas or unwillingness to develop. The problem is a lack of bandwidth.
Most teams have enough ambitions, but they critically lack the time to turn these ambitions into reliable, live services, while simultaneously supporting the operation of core systems and digital channels.
Journalist: You introduce the term resource barrier. How does it affect competition within the market in real time?
Artem Lyashanov: The resource barrier creates a direct competitive advantage. Banks that have enough resources to constantly work with APIs can connect new partners and implement regulator updates without stopping the development of other services. For the rest, any step forward depends on whether they can find free time in the schedule between updating core systems and supporting existing applications.
Overcoming the barrier
Journalist: The picture is quite harsh, either you have an unlimited staff of engineers, or you end up overboard. But is there a way to make Open Banking accessible to a wide range of participants? How to change the rules of the game so that the implementation process becomes feasible for everyone?
Artem Lyashanov: There is a way out, and it lies in a fundamental change in the approach to implementation. Today, banks find solutions in automation and delegation of technical tasks. In order for Open Banking to become accessible to a wide range of participants, the implementation process must become much simpler.
Journalist: So we are talking about a transition to using ready-made infrastructure services?
Artem Lyashanov: That’s right. I often emphasize this transition. Most teams cope with the first few cases. The pressure increases when the work becomes continuous. At this point, progress no longer depends on ambitions, but on how many resources have been freed up from other programs.
Journalist: So the future of open banking is not a fight for the best, but a fight for the most efficient operating model?
Artem Lyashanov: Absolutely. If the bank continues to perceive each new API connection as a unique engineering feat, it will lose. The winner will be the one who makes connecting partners as simple and routine as updating a mobile application.
Technological response to the resource challenge
Journalist: Artem, we have talked a lot about barriers and resource shortages. But what does this look like in practice?
Artem Lyashanov: To solve the problem of chaos, BPC transferred SmartVista to a modern modular architecture. Now the systems are much easier to deploy, update and scale. This not only reduces costs, but also significantly increases fault tolerance and security, critical factors when working with financial data.
Journalist: So the bank gets a kind of constructor that is already ready to work in the ecosystem?
Artem Lyashanov: In fact, a ready-made turnkey infrastructure is offered. Business teams get access to a powerful integration engine with ready-made work scenarios, automated partner onboarding tools, proven solutions for strong customer authentication (SCA).
Journalist: What does this give the bank in the end, if we talk about business results?
Artem Lyashanov: This transformation turns Open Banking from a burdensome obligation into a flexible growth tool available to any ambitious player.
Journalist: What would be your main conclusion for those who are just planning to expand their presence in open banking?
Artem Lyashanov: The main conclusion is simple, Open Banking will become massive only when API support turns into easy and cheap setup.
Conclusions
The interview with Artem Lyashanov clearly outlines a new stage in the development of the fintech market. If earlier success was determined by the speed of the first launch, today the main asset is the throughput of internal systems. The main difficulty of Open Banking was not in the technological breakthrough, but in the bank’s ability to withstand daily routine without losing the speed of development.
The key theses of the conversation confirm that the resource barrier is a reality that is already dividing the market into ecosystem leaders and those who are forced to abandon innovations for the sake of stability. However, the solutions offered by SmartVista from BPC prove that the solution lies not in the endless increase in the number of engineers, but in changing the very architecture of interaction.
The final message serves as a guideline for the entire financial sector, when the future belongs to those organizations that can make API support an invisible, cheap and as simple as possible operation, freeing up time and energy for the main thing, namely creating value for their client.
Since in the interview we touched on the topic of a shortage of hands, it is worth remembering that technology does not save weak teams. More about why fintech does not work without people and how to properly configure internal processes, Artem Lyashanov tells in his material.
