Exploring and evaluating the development of an open application programming interface (Open API) architecture for the fintech services ecosystem

Abstract

PurposeThe Open API (application programming interface) architecture will play an important role in promoting future FinTech service applications; however, it involves user data, and the current specialization and progression are less visible. Therefore, an evaluation framework for Open API development in the FinTech service ecosystem is constructed in this study.Design/methodology/approachThis study preliminarily selects the four most important key objects and factors of this ecosystem and conducts expert interviews to revise the evaluation framework. Then, this study uses the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) to evaluate the objects and their factor weights and finally uses the FAHP analysis results to further apply the evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) approach to explore the strategy optimization scenarios.FindingsAccording to the analysis results, the co-creation object and productivity object are the two most significant objects, with weights of 0.275 and 0.272, respectively. The analysis shows that FinTech-related companies expect to increase productivity through co-creation. Finally, the results also indicate that mobile payment is the best Open API application scenario in the FinTech service ecosystem, followed by online banking. These results illustrate strategic and management implications.Originality/valueThis study screens key evaluation criteria with a literature review and expert questionnaire interviews to process quantitative research. It can determine the weights of objectives and criteria to clarify the strength of influence between the objectives and criteria. Next, this study measures the probable performance of Open API applied in various FinTech service ecosystem scenarios.