Royal Bank of Canada has opened an API portal to encourage development of new products by third parties using the bank’s data. The bank is initially offering 5 API packages in the portal, which the bank claims is the first of its kind in the Canadian financial services marketplace. Each API package delivers the data elements, orchestration and business logic required to deliver the end to end business process. Sumit Oberai, senior vice president, Digital Technology at the bank, said across other industries the bank has seen the transformational effect of APIs and by providing external developers, industry innovators and clients with access to select RBC APIs, the bank gets the opportunity to increase connectivity, create new tools and experiences for clients, and enable open and innovative collaboration to improve the future of banking. Once registered and approved to use the RBC Developers portal, external parties will be able to browse and learn about the APIs offered and build, test and deploy their applications using these APIs.