# Why Mastercard is Focusing on APIs
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/blog/why-mastercard-is-focusing-on-apis/index.md

Authors: Oran Cummins. Summary Mastercard is investing in an API (Application Programming Interface) program to: Open up, standardize and simplify access to its services Deliver value before, during and after the payment in a way never possible through plastic alone The Application Programming Interface (API) economy has expanded exponentially over the past seven years, registering a nine-fold increase in the number of APIs listed on ProgrammableWeb, with more than 1,800 new open APIs listed in 2017 alone. Usage of Mastercard APIs has also experienced explosive growth with a 400 percent increase in usage during the same period. For issuers, this means more access to the innovative open-banking programs that enable more direct interactions with customers. APIs are the point of connection between new fintech interfaces and the bank. In the process, issuers create opportunities for new revenue, a better user experience and seamless product delivery. Mastercard continues to extend our API platform to developers by exposing our vast data, security, and payments to APIs. What is an API? I think it's funny that such a technical acronym (Application Programming Interface) is starting to get used in every day speak. If you're a software developer, or pride yourself on being quite technical, you'll inherently know what an API is. For everyone else, I'll try give a basic explanation... APIs are simply how separate services work together to deliver a solution. Example 1: Online Banking - when you login, usually the first thing you see is account balance. To deliver that solution, fundamentally two separate banking functions work together (login service \& account balance service) to allow you see how much money you have. How those services manage to work together is through an API. Example 2: Taxi Hailing app (e.g. Uber) - when you launch the app, you'll see cars nearby on a Map. Uber doesn't build all the technology themselves, one of the services (APIs) they use is Google Maps. Uber integrates the map functionality into their app through the Google Maps API. A useful analogy is 'lego bricks' - the brick size and color is analogous to the service (e.g. login, access to account info, map), while the lego brick dots and holes represent the API (i.e. how the services can be linked together). It seems simple, but creating 'good' lego bricks (APIs) requires focus and prioritization within an organization and that's why we have a dedicated API team in Mastercard to orchestrate the effort across the many teams in the company who define, build, deliver, market, sell and support our services. As a B2B technology company, APIs are a key way we distribute our services. This is actually nothing new to us but there is both an imperative and opportunity driving us to increase focus on APIs. Why is Mastercard investing? We're a 50 year company and for pretty much all of that time, our key services have been delivered through a plastic payment card -- a card that fits perfectly into the wallet you carry with you every day. As we start to enable payments on digital consumer devices, this requires us to expose APIs to 3rd parties (like Apple or Samsung or Google or Microsoft or Facebook or Banks or Merchants etc.) to ensure payments work as well on your phone or wearable as they currently do on plastic. That's an imperative - it's got to be simple and secure - it's how we got to where we are today! There's also enormous opportunity; as consumers start to pay with these smart devices, there's much more potential to deliver value around that payment (e.g. digital wallet, enhanced loyalty, pay with points, pay with installments, pay at table, controls \& alerts, contextual offers, priceless experiences...). The possibilities here are unbounded. Delivering this functionality and making it available to be embedded in 3rd party devices and apps requires increased focus on creating new services in commerce and opening them up to others through APIs. What are we doing? We're creating many new services and getting increasingly disciplined around making these services easily accessible via APIs for businesses to incorporate into their solutions. For inspiration, I look to lots of companies who've demonstrated success through an API focus (here's just a few)... Flexibility - Salesforce offer a highly configurable cloud service and supplement that with APIs to ensure a company can refine and seamlessly integrate their solution into existing company service infrastructure. Disruption - Amazon Web Services is probably the best example of how an industry can be disrupted through APIs. Today businesses invest in AWS APIs instead of buying and administering large computers. Simplicity - Stripe are a great example of how you can gain traction just by making APIs really easy to use. Standards - Mastercard (yes ourselves!), we have a strong pedigree in setting global payment standards across banks, merchants and other third parties to ensure your Mastercard works everywhere on the planet. How are we doing it? 'One Front Door' - We've created a developer portal (Mastercard Developers) through which every Mastercard service is being published (existing and newly built, including services from companies we acquire). Developer Tools - we want to make it as easy as possible to embed a Mastercard service so we're standardizing our documentation, we support SDKs (Software Development Kits) and sample code in 6 of the most popular programming languages. We're also offering reference implementations and pre-built components illustrating usage and shortening time to develop. Internal Discipline - APIs are not something you can just 'bolt on' to your services. It needs to become part of the product development and delivery ethos. At Mastercard, we have a general standard for rationalizing and creating new services - APIs (from both a business opportunity and technical build perspective) is now an intrinsic part of that. As a little extra incentive, we have an internal API Leader Board which assesses on both compliance (i.e. conforms to our API publishing standards) and performance (i.e. how is it doing in terms of volume, availability, responsiveness, revenue etc.) The benefit of having an API discipline can range from better engineering practice, to diversification of the business to even potentially disrupting an industry. I'm particularly excited by how the evolution of the plastic card to smart, connected, personal devices is creating the opportunity for us to deliver value beyond the payment and that APIs are a key component in delivering that.