Why is Mono involved?
Open banking opens up a way for customers to easily share their financial data--otherwise siloed in banks--with businesses in order to access personalized and better financial services. But for businesses to be able to access these customers' data, they usually need to connect to banks' APIs. However, this isn't exactly feasible, as building and maintaining these connections, while also building core products and services for their customers requires a lot of time and resources.
As an open banking platform, Mono plays an important role in building these connections, by creating APIs and no-code tools that allow connections to banks and financial institutions to be possible.
When businesses use Mono, they can securely access customers' bank accounts with their consent and make it easy for them to securely share their financial data or make direct bank transfer payments. For example, users can securely share their account information for identity checks and verification purposes or share their bank statements in minutes during loan applications.
This ensures that businesses can focus on innovating for their customers without needing to build individual connections to banks, while customers have the freedom to securely share their financial data with businesses.
More importantly, Mono maintains these connections on a daily basis for upgrades and improvements. We stay on top of new changes about open banking, regulations, and connectivity with multiple financial institutions, so whenever a customer wants to share their data with a business, it works seamlessly.
In what ways does Mono facilitate Open Banking?
Mono connects to over 30 financial institutions and provides businesses with easy-to-use APIs and customer-focused products that allow their customers to securely link their accounts to apps to share their financial data and enable payments from one bank to another. With access to financial data securely shared by customers, businesses can then build relevant products and services that improve the financial lives of these customers.
Mono provides two types of open banking services to both the consumer and the business, they are:
1. Secure access to real-time financial data
To enable a user to securely share their financial data with any business of their choice via Mono, they have to connect their bank account to the business first.
Through the Mono Connect widget, the account linking process happens in seconds. When a user securely connects their account to a business, this gives Mono the authorisation to fetch their verified financial data. This then allows the user to;
Share their account information:
You can retrieve customs' recent transactions, balances, and income data for simple use cases like assessing creditworthiness during a loan application, aggregating all their accounts in one place for better visibility and management, or aggregating investment accounts for wealth creation and investment advisory.
Share their bank statements in minutes:
With the Mono Statement Pages product, you can collect bank statements directly from the user's bank account without writing a line of code. This takes away the friction experienced when customers need to share their recent transaction history in order to access loans and credit. This speeds up the process by which businesses can access their customers' bank statements and also ensures that they can easily get the customer's verified statements directly from their bank.
Verify their identity easily:
The customer onboarding process often involves KYC requirements like the customer's BVN, account number, full name, etc. With Mono, customers can securely share their verified identity data like BVN, date of birth, full name, etc, with businesses without manually inputting this information each time. This then allows businesses to easily verify this identity information directly from the bank in minutes, and overall, reduce fraud attempts or the creation of fake user accounts.
2. Direct bank to bank payments
The Mono DirectPay product allows you to provide your users with a secure and convenient way to pay you directly without using cards or account numbers, and with users' identities verified before payments are authorized. This also enables you to collect one-time and recurring bank transfer payments without paying expensive transaction fees.
Before any payment is initiated, the customer consents to the payment by securely connecting their account to your app through the Mono Connect widget. This helps to verify their identity, prove ownership of their bank account, and ensure that they pay securely online without sharing their card details.
Payments are also transferred from one bank account to another, so you receive your same-day settlements.
Is it safe to use Mono?
Yes, it is absolutely safe to use Mono.
For the consumer
- You have complete control over who you can access your financial data (transactions, income, identity). You can also [unlink your account from apps](https://mono.co/portal) you shared your data with, anytime.
- Mono doesn't have access to move your funds without your consent.
- You can grant secure access to your financial account without sharing your BVN or card details online.
- Our systems are secured with the AES-256 bit encryption to keep your details safe. When you link your account to an app using your mobile or internet banking credentials, we encrypt them so the apps can't see your credentials.
- Mono will never share your data without your permission.
- Your financial institution will confirm ownership of your account before your data is shared or any payment is initiated.
For businesses/developers:
- You cannot access your customers' financial data without their consent. They have control over who they want to share their data with.
- Mono won't sell or rent your customers' data to third parties.
- We do not store your users' login credentials when they connect their accounts to your app.
- Our security team constantly monitors our API infrastructure to ensure that all user details are safe and secure.
- Third-party security experts perform regular security audits on Mono's APIs and systems.
As a data provider, Mono ensures that customers have control over their data and can securely share their financial data with digital businesses whenever they want. Whether it's the ability to aggregate users' bank accounts in one place, provide a faster customer onboarding process, or for identity verification purposes, Mono does the heavy lifting of ensuring easy and secure access to customers' accounts for their transactions, bank statements, and identity data, so businesses can build innovative, data-driven, and personalized products for their users.
