PREMIUM — APIs — application programming interfaces — are still in their early days in banking, but are starting to show their promise. Data is flowing from your account to third party service providers in your mobile device and beyond, so you are never far away from knowing how much money you don’t have.

APIs are sets of rules and protocols for building applications, often using data inputs to power that application. Every large bank is working with them — they underpin many of the buzziest innovations turning heads and grabbing headlines today. But there are signs banks may be thinking of them in profoundly different ways.

Wells Fargo refers to its APIs collectively as a channel, according to Imran Haider, head of product, open API channel. (His title does not help clarify the issue.) Haider, who reports to Secil Watson, EVP, and head of wholesale services, notes the bank’s APIs are a “new channel, built out to be a one-stop shop” for more than 20 use cases.

API users vary widely. “We support the entire bank,” Haider told Bank Innovation. 

There are many processes for creating APIs at the bank. A common one is a request from a line of business. “They have a roadmap of features they want,” Haider said.

“We may educate them on the APIs, then we have design sessions and co-develop ideas.” Then comes testing for soundness and stability. “We drive value for the line of business and consumers,” he said. “Where can we add value? If it benefits the consumer, it benefits us, wholesale and retail.”

The price point for solutions like payments for business is “no different than other channels,” he said.

Dominic Venturo, chief innovation officer for U.S. Bank, describes the bank’s collection of APIs as a product. “APIs aren’t the dominion of tech people,” he told Bank Innovation. “If you manage them, you should manage them like products. They are designed around ecosystems and use cases, with roadmaps and features.”

U.S. bank has multiple job postings for APIs as well, from full-stack engineers to API Senior Architect.

This may be a distinction without a difference, however. Both banks use APIs to support the lines of business and develop them based on needs and specific use cases, rather than creating them because they can and seeing how they will be adopted.

Mobile banking itself can be considered both a channel and a product. Ron Shevlin, director of research at Cornerstone Advisors, put it this way in a Twitter direct message.

 I would argue that a mobile app is not a “product” unless there is a price or fee involved to use the app. That definition would apply to any “service” — online bill pay is a “product” if you charge for it, but a”service” if you don’t.

If you charged to use the mobile app — or made any sales through a mobile app (free or otherwise) — then that revenue should be attributed to the “mobile channel.”

It is still early days for APIs in banking, and Shevlin’s point about price is a good one. Is it still “open banking” if the bank charges a fee for use of data? It costs the bank money to store and protect data, and they may be allowing other services that charge money, such as roboadvisors, to access it.