Principles of Cooperation

The development of Common API specifications that gain the best possible coverage at the Swiss financial community is a very ambitious approach. To maximize the chances of success, it has to be assured that all stakeholders identified as being affected by this effort are considered appropriately.

On the other hand, things have to be addressed carefully to groups not too manifold. Therefore, all topics to be treated have to be shaped clearly, with distinct descriptions of the particular con-text. Stripping down complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable ones will be a mayor prerequisite to succeed.

To get things done efficiently while bearing the above in mind, the participating parties agree on the following Principles of Cooperation:

Team & Purpose

1. First and foremost, the working group consists of exponents from SFTI’s member companies, i.e. from full or associated members.

2. SFTI also welcomes non-SFTI representatives from banks, insurances and other companies that operate in the field of Swiss finance to join the working group.

3. The working group addresses primarily the development of Common API specifications for FIs.

4. Other topics are the release management of existing API specs, basic implementation support for FIs and TPPs and other tasks that foster the proliferation of the Common API specs.

Management

The Com1. mon API specifications shall be realized incrementally and in a release based manner.

1. The specific topics are addressed by dedicated subgroups.

2. The specification processes are managed by the lead of SFTI’s Common API work group.

3. All decisions with regard to the functional range of the Common API specifications are prepared conjointly by the responsible subgroup and thereafter reviewed by the Common API work group as a whole. Final approval is also up to the work group as a whole.

Line of action

The prioritizatio1. n of the business domains that are covered by the Common API specifications shall be documented in an appropriate roadmap which is managed by the work group lead.

1. The roadmap of the Common API specifications shall be reviewed by SFTI member companies, as well as by third parties (e.g. by members of the SFTI advisory board). Final approval is up to the Common API work group.

2. The review process of the Common API specification for banking will be defined by the lead of the work group as agreed with the remaining team.

Frame Conditions

The API's l1. ayout shall be closely geared to existing and proven API models. Obvious candidates are finTS and EBICS , among others. Furthermore, the API's design shall respect existing message standards wherever required. In particular, the API shall be compliant to ISO20022 and FIX .

1. For b2c scenarios, authorization shall be implemented based on OAuth2. The authentication part depends on the implementation. Possible are OpenID Connect (OIDC) or a bank specific strong 2-way authentication. It’s by the bank to decide, which operation which authentication method needs. It is up to the decision of the spec team to decide further on this topic.

2. Each core banking software provider shall provide a test system that implements the current release of the common API specification for banking.

3. Access to the test environments will be open, but subject to a registration process. The latter condition is put in place not to exclude anyone, but to avoid misuse of the test infrastructure.

4. SFTI will provide a website to the core banking software providers, where test user accounts may be registered to minimize any misuse of the testing environment.

5. A proper release management shall be put in place as well. This is to assure best possible compatibility wherever possible.

6. If the compatibility is discontinued by breaking changes (new mayor release), then a parallel operation must be possible for an adequate time. It is up to the decision of the spec team to set the details on this topic.

Documentation

1. A public workspace to hold all current artefacts of the Common API specifications shall be established and maintained by SFTI. It shall make use of Confluence and GitHub.

2. Access to this workspace must be open to all work group members at any time.

3. It is to be discussed whether the balanced releases of the Common API specifications shall be published at the SKSF website.

The work group agrees to address the business domain Payments as the first topic of the Common API specification.