canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/openfintech.io/openfintech-io

# OpenFinTech.io

OpenFinTech.io is an open reference database of standardized identifiers for the global FinTech industry. It exposes read-only catalogues of banks, countries, currencies (national, digital, virtual, crypto), exchangers, payment providers, payment methods, deposit methods, organizations, and merchant industries so that microservices can resolve consistent IDs across systems. Records are updated up to once per day and the dataset is published under the Open Database License, making it a stable lookup source for KYC, payment routing, and financial integration tooling.

## For AI agents

Look up standardized identifiers for banks, currencies, countries, payment providers, and payment methods so an agent can resolve consistent FinTech entities across systems.

## Scope

Does not handle payment execution, FX conversion, or live bank account access - use for FinTech reference identifier lookup only.

## Capabilities

- Resolve a bank entity by ID and retrieve its standardized FinTech identifier and metadata
- List countries with associated currency, region, and FinTech mapping data
- Look up national, digital, virtual, and crypto currencies in a single normalized catalogue
- Retrieve deposit and payment method definitions for routing decisions in payment flows
- Query payment providers and exchangers when reconciling cross-system payment records
- Browse merchant industry classifications for risk scoring and merchant categorization

## Use cases

### Normalize Payment Provider Data Across Systems

Use OpenFinTech.io as a shared reference catalogue when integrating multiple payment processors. Each provider, method, and currency has a stable identifier so downstream microservices can reconcile records without bespoke mapping tables. The dataset covers banks, exchangers, and payment providers globally, and entities are refreshed up to daily under the Open Database License.

Example prompt: Fetch the bank record for a specific bank ID and extract its country and currency identifiers for use in a downstream payment routing decision.

### Currency and Crypto Reference Lookup

OpenFinTech.io ships a unified currency catalogue covering national, digital, virtual, and crypto currencies in one schema. Applications can resolve symbols, codes, and metadata for any tracked currency without maintaining a private list. Useful for accounting, FX display, and compliance flows where a canonical currency identifier is required.

Example prompt: Call GET /currencies to retrieve the full currency catalogue, then filter to entries where the type is crypto and return the list of identifiers.

### Country and Merchant Industry Enrichment

Enrich onboarding or KYC records by resolving a country ID into its full OpenFinTech profile, or classify a merchant against the standardized industry list. The country and merchant-industries endpoints provide consistent codes that can replace ad-hoc free-text fields in customer or transaction records.

Example prompt: Look up the country record for ID 'us' and return its currency identifier and region metadata for a new merchant onboarding flow.

### AI Agent FinTech Reference Lookup via Jentic

Agents handling payment, banking, or compliance tasks frequently need a stable reference for entity identifiers. Through Jentic, an agent can call OpenFinTech.io operations by intent and receive normalized bank, currency, or provider records without parsing the raw spec. No credentials are required since the API is publicly accessible.

Example prompt: Use Jentic to search for 'list fintech banks', execute the operation, and return the first 10 banks with their identifiers and country codes.

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GET | `/banks` | List of banks |
| GET | `/banks/{id}` | Get a bank by ID |
| GET | `/currencies` | List of currencies including crypto and digital |
| GET | `/countries` | List of countries |
| GET | `/exchangers` | List of digital exchangers |
| GET | `/payment-methods` | List of payment methods |
| GET | `/merchant-industries` | List of merchant industries |

## Key resources

- **Banks** — List banks and retrieve a bank record by ID.
- **Countries** — List countries and retrieve country metadata by ID.
- **Currencies** — List national, digital, virtual, and crypto currencies and retrieve a currency by ID.
- **Exchangers** — List digital exchangers and retrieve exchanger details by ID.
- **Payment methods** — Browse payment method definitions used in cross-provider mapping.
- **Deposit methods** — List deposit methods and retrieve a deposit method by ID.
- **Merchant industries** — List standardized merchant industry classifications.

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the OpenFinTech.io API by hand means shaping the reference-identifier lookups for banks, currencies, and payment methods and parsing their responses yourself, even though no credentials are involved. Through Jentic you install once, import the OpenFinTech.io API from the API Directory, and your agent calls it directly.
- **Permission scoping:** OpenFinTech.io is a read-only reference API with no credentials whose lookup id travels in the URL path (`/banks/{id}`), so scope it by limiting the agent to the operations it needs, such as listing currencies or fetching a bank by id. You choose the operations it may call, and nothing beyond that set runs.
- **Credential handling:** OpenFinTech.io has no authentication, so there is nothing to store; your Jentic One instance still routes the call through its execution layer. No secret ever enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'look up a bank by id' or 'list all currencies', and Jentic returns the matching OpenFinTech.io operation with its parameter schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **Currency Beacon API** — Currency Beacon focuses on live and historical FX rates, while OpenFinTech.io provides canonical identifiers for currencies and providers.
- **ExchangeRate-API** — Use ExchangeRate-API for live conversion rates alongside OpenFinTech.io currency reference data.
- **Nordigen API** — Nordigen provides bank account data via PSD2 open banking; OpenFinTech.io provides bank reference identifiers.

## FAQ

### What authentication does the OpenFinTech.io API use?

The OpenFinTech.io API is open and does not require authentication for the documented endpoints. Through Jentic, agents call it directly without credentials, and any future authenticated extension would be issued through your Jentic One instance rather than embedded in the agent prompt.

### Can I look up cryptocurrencies and digital currencies with the OpenFinTech.io API?

Yes. The GET /currencies endpoint returns national, digital, virtual, and crypto currencies in a single normalized catalogue. Filter by the currency type field to narrow results to crypto entries.

### What are the rate limits for the OpenFinTech.io API?

The OpenFinTech.io API does not publish formal rate limits, but the underlying dataset is updated at most once per day, so aggressive polling provides no benefit. Cache results client-side and refresh on a daily cadence.

### How do I list all banks for a country with the OpenFinTech.io API through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'list fintech banks', load the schema for GET /banks, then execute it. Filter the response by the country identifier returned for that country via GET `/countries/{id}.`

### Is the OpenFinTech.io API free to use?

Yes. The dataset is published under the Open Database License and the public endpoints are free to query. Attribution requirements from the ODbL apply if you redistribute the data.

### What payment-related entities does the OpenFinTech.io API cover?

The API exposes payment providers, payment methods, deposit methods, exchangers, banks, and merchant industries. These can be combined to build standardized routing tables or enrich transaction records with canonical IDs.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the OpenFinTech.io API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which OpenFinTech.io operations the agent may call, so you can allow only what it needs, such as listing currencies or fetching a bank by id via GET `/banks/{id}.` If you never grant the exchangers, payment-methods, or merchant-industries lookups, the agent cannot invoke them, and nothing beyond the operations you approve runs. Since this is a read-only reference API with no credentials, scoping is purely about which lookups you expose.