Open Banking is a buzzword — among bankers, anyway. Most customers have never heard of it, though they do want access to their bank account in other products, like the iTunes Store, Amazon, or Mint.com.

Ron Shevlin noted on Twitter:

I bet if I surveyed consumers and asked “Do you want “#OpenBanking?” a decent % would say yes.

And that if I explained what Open Banking is, that % would drop dramatically.

— Ron Shevlin (@rshevlin) March 15, 2018

The value of APIs is indeed obscure even to many in the banking world, and with good reason. A customer whose bank account is hacked will complain to the bank, and the bank is on the hook for the money, but the customer may have his account credentials stored in dozens of sites that are vulnerable to compromise, no matter how good the bank security is.

Secil Watson, head of wholesale internet solutions at Wells Fargo, and manager of its API platform, discussed the bank’s approach to its APIs, and who might be using them — customers, third parties like PFMs, and even other banks. She discussed this on the podcast Fintech Unfiltered, a joint production from Bank Innovation and its sister accelerator, INV Fintech.