Enabling Open Finance with TecBan in Brazil 

TecBan is a Brazilian solutions company that integrates the physical and the digital to make the country’s economic ecosystem more efficient and expand people’s financial inclusion. Helping the market deliver open finance was a natural extension for TecBan, which chose Ozone API as its partner. Together, Ozone API and TecBan have provided more than 20 banks with the tools they need to implement standards-compliant open finance APIs and create new revenue streams. 

TecBan in numbers: 

• Gross revenues of R$ 3.8 billion 
• Operates more than 24,000 ATMs across Brazil
• Served 152 million Brazilians in 2021
• Launched Brazil’s first 5G ATM
• Invested R$ 500 million in transformation and innovation in 2021
• Connected to 150 financial institutions 
• The world’s leading company by volume of withdrawals

Figures taken from TecBan’s 2021 Annual Report

Open Finance In Brazil

The pace of Brazil’s open finance transformation has been breathtaking. Two years ago, its ecosystem was just getting started. Today, Brazil leads the world. 

In Brazil, the journey began when the National Monetary Council and the Central Bank of Brazil set out a plan to introduce open banking and then finance in four phases. The first phase introduced basic data sharing and in 2022, regulators announced the official launch of open finance, which unlocked the ability to share data relating to investments, insurance and other financial products. 

The ecosystem continues to grow, with more players offering open finance services. Banco do Brasil, the oldest bank in Brazil, recently integrated payment initiation services into its app, allowing customers to transfer their funds to 18 banks using PIX – an instant payment system the Central Bank of Brazil launched in 2020. We expect to see further growth and innovation, with Brazil likely to become the world’s leading ecosystem. Open finance is also predicted to have a dramatic effect on financial inclusion in Brazil, which has more than 30 million unbanked adults. 

Challenges 

When open banking launched in Brazil in February 2021, banks were forced to move fast or miss out. The nation’s financial institutions faced the urgent and often difficult task of meeting the growing demand for open banking services, satisfying regulatory requirements and then going beyond compliance to unlock the many benefits of open finance. Open banking has opened up opportunities in banking services as well as insurance, investments, exchange and many others, enabling new solutions to financial inclusion challenges and laying out the foundations for an Open Data world.

As a trusted banking infrastructure partner, TecBan was well positioned to help the banks adapt to this new world. The new business models and innovation team are leading the charge and developing exciting new propositions to serve the market. Ozone API, developer of the leading standards-based software for open banking, was the ideal partner for TecBan to provide financial institutions in Brazil with the tools they need to deliver world-class open finance propositions. 

Open Finance With Ozone API

The TecBan Open Finance platform (powered by Ozone API) adheres to open finance standards set by Brazil’s Central Bank and open insurance regulations from SUSEP. It is constantly updated as standards and regulations evolve. 

From meeting basic compliance to going way beyond compliance with premium APIs and other value-adding services to ensure that open finance becomes a strategic platform for growth, Ozone API delivers technology and infrastructure for any open finance requirement globally. With a full open finance programme rolling out in multiple stages, the partnership is now extending from the initial open banking phase to open insurance. 

Tiago Aguiar, TecBan, said: ‘’Chris Michael and Huw Davies provide a lot of credibility as they are founding fathers of the UK open banking standard. The decision to partner with Ozone API was a risk-free option as they are experts in their field. Ozone API helped us to get to market quickly by simplifying our compliance requirements.”

Inside Ozone API

The Ozone API story began five years ago when CEO and co-founder Chris Michael led the team that developed the UK Open Banking Standard, which served as a blueprint for Brazil and many other countries to follow. This experience enabled Ozone to work in ecosystems around the world with banks, regulators and other players in the open finance ecosystem. 

Ozone API also delivered a market sandbox in advance of the regulation in Brazil, which formed the basis for what we believe was the biggest open banking hackathon in the world, featuring one thousand applicants who delivered a huge range of use cases showing the potential of open finance to tackle societal issues such as financial inclusion. 

We are passionate supporters of inclusion and other social causes, with CCO Huw Davies founding and leading the Fintech Without Frontiers initiative, which connects displaced people with opportunities at fintechs that need talent to fuel their own growth journeys. 

The Future

The global open finance revolution is just getting started, and Brazil shows just how quickly change can happen. Businesses that use the Ozone API are guaranteed to benefit from initial and ongoing conformance to relevant standards worldwide. Ozone API’s technology can be installed on almost any infrastructure, from public cloud to private cloud or on-premise, with a low total cost of ownership. 

The Ozone API is the ideal solution for banks and financial institutions looking to move beyond compliance and build profitable commercial channels. 

View other Ozone API case studies.