# Achieving the API Gold Standard
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/blog/achieving-api-gold-standard/index.md

Authors: Madison Ling. How does Mastercard test its APIs? At Mastercard, we're passionate about building APIs that don't just function well -- they shine. Behind the scenes, we hold our APIs to the highest standard by self-assessing and measuring their effectiveness with our Mastercard API Gold Standard program. What does this mean for developers? Let's dive in. What is the Mastercard API Gold Standard? Imagine an API that's not only functional but also intuitive and reliable. That's the goal of our Gold Standard program. Every API we offer is built with your success in mind. Before an API goes live, it is evaluated against rigorous product and technical benchmarks. Why? To ensure our APIs make your work easier. However, we know perfection is a journey, not a destination. While not all Mastercard APIs fully meet our Gold Standard today, we are on a mission to ensure that every Mastercard API conforms to our core principles -- including RESTful standards. With each iteration, we're getting closer to creating a fully standardized ecosystem of APIs that developers love to use. What are the RESTful standards? 1. Rich Features, Delivered Simply Whether you're building a payment solution or enabling personal financial management, our APIs are designed to provide everything you need without unnecessary complexity. For instance, some of the most popular ways to build with our Open Finance product include account opening, payment enablement, lending, and personal financial management. This flexibility ensures that Mastercard APIs adapt to evolving customer needs across industries. 2. RESTful Design Backed by Automated Validation Mastercard APIs are built on REST principles to ensure consistency, scalability, and ease of use; and, we don't stop here. We've developed a powerful linter tool that evaluates the YAML files of our APIs to validate adherence to RESTful principles. This ensures our APIs are designed with best practices in mind, giving you a consistent and reliable experience every time. While some APIs are still evolving to meet these standards, we are actively working to bring every Mastercard API to this level. 3. Comprehensive, Clear Documentation We know the pain of poorly documented APIs. That's why every API on our platform comes with detailed, developer-friendly documentation. With defined sections, such as API Basics, we cover usage, authentication, and environment setup, to make sure your needs are met. 4. Tools that make Integration and Testing a Breeze Our Postman collections and reference applications help you test and interact with your APIs almost instantly. To simplify integration, Mastercard provides reference applications, or ready-made functional solutions, addressing common pain points, such as: encryption, authentication, and client setup. With our Postman collections, there's no need to write lines of code to understand how things work. We make it possible to get up and run quickly and focus on your project. Take a look at two great examples of this: Mastercard BIN Lookup API: BIN Lookup helps customers retrieve account range information that powers automated integrations without depending on acquiring partners. Mastercard Automatic Billing Updater API: Automatic Billing Updater is a web service that provides access to updated account credentials (cards). 5. Rock-Solid Performance and Availability Whether you're in the sandbox or production, we prioritize high performance. Our health check monitors ensure that our APIs are delivering the reliability you need, with uptime and availability metrics, located on the API Status page. 6. World-Class Support Need help? We're here to partner with you. Our support teams assist with everything from technical issues to general questions. Open a support case to get the answers you need. 7. Security You Can Trust Security is non-negotiable. All our APIs undergo rigorous testing to ensure strong authorization, encryption, and compliance with global regulations like GDPR and PCI. You can rest easy knowing your integrations are built on a secure foundation. Why Should All of This Matter? Because we know that your reputation is important. When you use Mastercard APIs, you're not just integrating a service -- you're building trust with your users. Whether you're a solo developer or part of a large team, we help you deliver high-quality, secure, and scalable solutions that make a difference. For example, imagine you're tasked with launching a new payment feature for your app. With our Gold Standard APIs, you can quickly integrate payment capabilities and deliver a seamless user experience. Our Promise to You We're constantly improving. We listen to your feedback to make our APIs and tools even better. Whether it's through clearer documentation, more powerful tools, or faster response times, we're committed to your success. Every day, we're evolving our tools, processes, and APIs to meet the Gold Standard and ensure consistency across the platform. Our goal is to create a unified experience for developers where every API is intuitive, reliable, and RESTful by design. Take our Mastercard API Status page, for instance, developers told us they needed better visibility into real-time performance; so, we made it easier to see uptime and availability for all our services. It's the little things like this that make a big difference when you're working under pressure. Let's Build Together At Mastercard, we're not just creating APIs -- we're creating partnerships. We know the challenges developers face because we've been there too. That's why we've designed our APIs to be more than just endpoints -- they're tools to help you bring ideas to life. So, whether you're exploring our APIs for the first time or you're already a pro, we're excited to see what you'll build next. Ready to get started? Visit Mastercard Developers to learn how we can help you take your project to the next level. Let's continue to build great things together.