A presentation given by Chris Wood, Freelance Consultant, at our 2024 Austin API Summit, March 12-13. Session Description: As the API economy continues to grow we are increasingly impacted as API designers and developers by the role of standards. In this talk we take a whistle stop tour of the standards landscape, and look at how it might affect our day jobs in the years to come.

1. 1

2. Standards, Standards, Everywhere...
What Standards (Should) Really Mean
In An API World
Chris Wood
13th March 2024

3. 3
Standards for
“open blah blah
blah”

4. 4
Standards help enable
API ecosystems

5. 5
Standards are a
template for APIs

6. Consistency for API
consumers
(where it’s needed)
A level playing field
(where it helps)
Time for more
interesting things
(life is boring enough)
Standards, Standards, Everywhere...
6
Standards for APIs provide...

7. 7
What no-one ever said:
Implementing APIs based on
standards is GREAT!

8. 8
Standards DX
A worked example

9. EU open banking
Payment Services
Directive 2 (PSD2)
9

10. 10
Multiple new
standards
Same DX deal for
implementers

11. Extended Payment Initiation Services– Implementation Guidelines Contents
Published by the Berlin Group under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License Page 17
(ref. License Notice for full license conditions)
3.3 Secured Payment Initiation Request
Call
POST /v2/secured-payments/{payment-product}
Creates an extended payment resource for secured payments at the ASPSP for the XFPIS
service.
NOTE: This endpoint supports only some minor technical adaptions compared to compliance
related payment initiation as defined in [oFA-ComV2]. Especially, no explicit initiation of the
transfer execution is supported. This is done implicitly like in the Core XS2A interface.
NOTE: This endpoint supports generically secured payment with and without requested
execution dates. The ASPSP might restrict the functionality to one of these functions.
Path Parameters
Attribute Type Description
payment-
product
String The addressed payment product endpoint, e.g. for SEPA Credit
Transfers (SCT). The default list of products supported in this
standard is:
 sepa-credit-transfers
 micro-sepa-credit-transfers
 instant-sepa-credit-transfers
 target-2-payments
 cross-border-credit-transfers
The ASPSP will publish which of the payment products/endpoints
will be supported.
For definitions of basic non-Euro generic products see
[oFA PFDom].
Further products might be published by the ASPSP within its XS2A
documentation.
NOTE: The micro-sepa-credit-transfers endpoint is a product endpoint where an ASPSP can
offer (secured) SCT payments without SCA under certain rules and obeying to the micro
payment exception rules of [PSD2]. A rule could e.g. be "up to 10 payments per TPP and PSU
under 10 Euro in a row before SCA is required". Since such a product might require a
dedicated risk management and price structure, it is supported on a dedicated endpoint.
Query Parameters
No Query Parameter
11
Berlin Group
• Classic financial services
standards
• Loooooong PDF
• Rules written up in long-
hand
• Aimed at humans

12. Standards, Standards, Everywhere...
12
UK Open Banking
• Swaps the PDF for HTML
• Better for indexing and search
• Still long with lots of detail
• Still needs transposing to
code...

13. • Praise be for API descriptions
• Standards bodies provide them
• Very helpful, but rarely a 1st
class
citizen
• They are very useful as a template
• Based on DAY 1 of the summit, is
there a problem with complexity?
Standards, Standards, Everywhere...
13
But we did get...

14. • Lots of verbiage
• Needs to be transposed to code
• Tends to be very inefficient
• Involves multiple people – developer, analysts, etc.
• Decreases enablement of ecosystems
Standards, Standards, Everywhere...
14
Root the problem?

15. PSD3
is coming
15

16. 16
Can we make
standards-based
APIs any easier to
implement?

17. • We’ve already mentioned them...
• API descriptions provide machine-
readable representations
• There’s plenty of options...
• Make them 1st
class citizens
• Focus on use cases...
17
API descriptions
Standards, Standards, Everywhere...

18. • Nascent standard
• Codify the sequence of APIs
calls
• Do it within and across APIs
• Provides rules for following
the sequence of calls
18
OpenAPI Workflows
Standards, Standards, Everywhere...

19. • Lots said already...
• Can we make it deterministic?
• Chatting does not equal an
attestation
• Can there be such a thing as
the standards (L)LM or GPT?
Standards, Standards, Everywhere...
19
What about AI?

20. OAI Workflow
(or an
alternative)
Standards, Standards, Everywhere...
20
The Future of Standards DX?
(A GPT for
standards)

21. Thanks!
chris@graphiso.io
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sensiblewood/
https://www.instagram.com/the_zak_wilson_episode/
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Standards, Standards, Everywhere...