Almost all of us have made instant payments through Google Pay or Paytm. Or by scanning a QR Code displayed outside dhabas and tea shops. Ever wondered how these third-party Apps can trigger instant payment from our personal bank accounts?
The answer is straightforward — through embedded financial services, or APIs as offered by banks.

API is a protocol or standard that allows secure communication between different computer applications. The protocol that describes how to build or use such a connection or interface is called an API specification. Bank APIs are already available and widely used for retail transactions, such as for making payments through 3rd party apps.

Now, almost all major banks have developed, or are developing, APIs that can be used by Corporate Entities. These APIs can be used to fully automate payment transfers and transaction queries, thereby speeding up the company’s processes involving payment settlements and monitoring of receivables.

Banking APIs that can add great value to Companies include Corporate Payouts, Beneficiary Management, Reconciliation & Account Management, Inward & Outward Remittances, transactions related to Letters of Credit, Bank Guarantees, and so on.

Once “embedded banking” is implemented, Corporate users, can trigger banking transactions directly from the ERP, rather than having to log in to net banking through browsers, or mobile apps for the purpose, as is now done.

Companies often maintain accounts with multiple banks, each with their own distinct and proprietary API protocol specification. This means that more than one “middleware” application is needed to be deployed in order to consume the Banking APIs offered by different banks. This increases the cost of deployment and maintenance for Companies.

IVL’s product “hides” the complexities involved when companies seek to consume the APIs of several banks.

Our product seamlessly routes whatever transaction that is initiated at the ERP to the specified bank in a seamless manner. That is to say, for Companies, our product would be the single point interface to initiate banking transactions. Whichever is the bank at the other end, the ERP will use the common standard protocol that is specified by IVL. We take care of the correct protocol, security and other aspects involved in consuming APIs offered by various banks.

For SAP, IVL offers an end to end integrated solution as a SAP Add-on Product. For other ERP, we provide common API Interfaces that can be called for implementing embedded banking with multiple banks.