OFX: Moving global payments forward with APIs
About OFX
As a leader in the payments space, OFX powers some of the biggest names in global money transfer. To date, OFX has managed over 1 million transfers totaling more than US$66 billion.
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Contact usOFX powers global payments and foreign exchange (FX) with innovative API products developed and managed on the Apigee API management platform from Google.
Google Cloud Results
- Provides instant access to market-leading exchange rates via Global Currency Account API
- Handles customer payment accounts more securely and at scale with Payments API and OFX Global Wallet
- Offers innovative API solutions for building new products that meet EU open-banking regulations
Added 200+ users to Dev Platform API in under 16 months
OFX began as a foreign exchange (FX) information-only service in Australia in 1998. Fast forward to today and OFX is now a global money transfer business operating internationally, with over 1 million registered customers. OFX has historically had a strong B2C focus but has significantly expanded its corporate offering in recent years.
When the company first launched its corporate service, it looked much like a consumer product for businesses. Companies would be onboarded and interact with the OFX website in a similar manner to consumers. However, the company realized that this B2C approach didn't completely meet the expectations of B2B customers in the digital world.
"Customer security is extremely important to OFX and was a key factor when choosing an API partner. We had confidence that Apigee and Google would allow us to safely and more securely take care of our customers' finances at scale."
—Martin North, API Product Manager, OFXMeeting customer needs quickly and securely
To better meet B2B customer needs, OFX began working to differentiate its consumer and business products by drilling down into the more complex set of B2B customer requirements, as well as addressing changing technology and regulatory landscapes. APIs emerged as the foundation for providing seamless digital experiences.
OFX wanted to rapidly implement robust APIs that would generate business value for partners with minimal development costs. Additionally, the OFX team needed to build a fast go-to-market platform that would provide turnkey access to market-leading exchange rates. OFX chose to implement the Apigee API Management Platform. The development team was convinced that by creating a familiar, industry-standard experience for developers, they would also build confidence with potential partners and simplify onboarding.
The team's efforts soon resulted in two new OFX products: the Global Currency Account API and the International Payments API. Both products enable the company to serve customers with more complex organizational structures and meet their needs as the marketplace evolves. The savviest of these customers are building their own products that integrate seamlessly with OFX through APIs.
This integration represents an exciting new opportunity for OFX to interact at a deeper level with a broader range of businesses. With APIs, the company is integrating with customers at a business-process level, which enables it to build products that respond to specific customer needs. While OFX provides a niche service centered on global money transfers and FX business, it now offers specialized integration points that high-volume customers require to solve unique problems, especially as they address international regulations.
"Apigee is a one-stop solution to create a robust product for easier, more secure API access, and much more. Apigee enables us to do traffic management, access control, documentation, and usage trend analysis, and offers a powerful developer platform for our partners, while accelerating time to market."
—Khashayar Parhami, API Technical Lead, OFXBuilding a secure product—quickly
OFX uses Apigee as a gateway to make internal services available to external developers as REST APIs. Apigee is also used to manage incoming traffic through built-in functionality, such as spike arrest and quota policy. Perhaps most important, the company trusts the security capabilities of Apigee to meet the exacting requirements unique to a fintech company.
"Customer security is extremely important to OFX and was a key factor when we chose an API partner. We had confidence that Apigee and Google would allow us to more safely and securely take care of our customers' finances at scale," says Martin North, API Product Manager, OFX.
In addition, the OFX team built and launched a dedicated developer portal to enable external developers and partners to register, test, and implement APIs more securely and easily. The developer portal provides open access to documentation, banking templates, the developer community, support, and customer success stories. The OFX development team considers Apigee to be integral to their API product strategy, noting that moving forward without a solution like this would have required a considerable investment and delayed go-to-market.
"Apigee is a one-stop solution for creating a robust product for easier, more secure API access, and much more. Apigee enables us to do traffic management, access control, documentation, and usage trend analysis, and offers a powerful developer platform for our partners, while accelerating time to market," says Khashayar Parhami, API Technical Lead, OFX.
"Apigee is a key part of our platform strategy. By simplifying the process of building and managing our APIs, Apigee enables us to focus our resources on innovation and creating customer value."
—Matthew Littlejohn, Product Owner, OFXA platform for innovation
Building on the success of the Payments API since its launch in late 2017, OFX recently launched a Rates API. This product, which offers partners and their customers access to market-leading exchange rates from OFX, has proven popular. In just a few months, almost 200 developers have registered to use it via the Apigee platform.
Matthew Littlejohn, Product Owner at OFX, adds: "Apigee is a key part of our platform strategy. By simplifying the process of building and managing our APIs, Apigee allows us to focus our resources on innovation and creating customer value."
OFX plans to continue making new services and features available through their APIs, which make it simple to work with partners and developers to foster innovation. One area of growth is the evolution and merging of API products in response to the new European Union open banking regulations, which most OFX corporate customers must comply with. Some of these regulations require open access to the OFX Global Wallet. In practice, this means the company is proposing creative new use cases, like debit alternatives and giving customers access to use their Global Currency Account funds to make purchases at points of sale.
Apigee enables OFX to focus resources on innovation and enhanced customer value. From increasing the size of opportunities and the types of customers that it attracts to enriching its value proposition, the scalability that Apigee provides is making a significant impact on the service and digital experience for OFX customers.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About OFX
As a leader in the payments space, OFX powers some of the biggest names in global money transfer. To date, OFX has managed over 1 million transfers totaling more than US$66 billion.