Report: Edge Cloud Helps FIs Optimize API Performance

As expectations for customer experiences become more sophisticated, their interest in more user-friendly financial products increases as well. Financial institutions (FIs) must improve not only the performance of their user-facing products but also ensure that the speed and security of their products remain consistent over time and on every device. According to PYMNTS research, many FIs are leveraging edge cloud technology to improve help product performance and speed.

The Optimized API: How Edge Cloud Technology Transforms FI’s API Performance, a PYMNTS and Fastly playbook, examines how consumers today are accustomed to the simplicity of a click, unlocking engaging, interactive experiences on retailer, brand and entertainment sites, and they expect the same from their FIs. As the digital shift continues to create a ripple effect across new industries, FIs are now looking to transform their workflows to accommodate the need for continuous product innovation. FI development teams must therefore create an innovation model that optimizes security while delivering fast mobile app response times, intuitive, personalized interactions and device-specific user experiences that amplify the value of each product or service.

Meeting the needs of a discerning consumer base has led many FIs to develop apps and platform-based products that streamline or automate routine common financial tasks for consumers. Yet for those products to deliver on their promise of added value to the customer experience, they must be efficient and reliable.

Many FIs have turned to secure application programming interfaces (APIs) to achieve these goals. These building blocks are used to send, receive and modify business-critical data to power fast, intuitive interactions online and in apps. While APIs enable a more dynamic user experience, consistent performance is often a challenge.

Some FIs have found an alternative to reliance on traditional content delivery networks (CDNs) in edge cloud technology.

Unlike legacy CDNs, edge cloud technology allows FI products to cache dynamic content and deliver responses to user requests closer to consumers from the “edge” of the cloud.

Edge cloud technology allows the caching of content typically considered uncacheable, such as frequently and unpredictably changing content like stock prices and other real-time transaction data. That means FIs using these platforms can develop innovative products on-demand, unrestricted by a need to replace content delivery solutions when expanding product or service offerings to include dynamic, personalized features dependent on real-time speed.

While FIs still face significant challenges in developing robust, secure products that meet the ever-changing demands of their clientele, the ability to rapidly propagate changes to apps in-market and scale with audience growth helps remove friction from innovation planning.

According to Ken Meyer, executive vice president and chief information officer of channel engineering and innovation for Truist, an FI based in North Carolina, edge cloud technology has helped his company rise to the challenge of creating highly performant, innovative products.

“Edge [cloud technology] enables a responsive system and application for the user, reduces latency and isolates user experiences from network dependencies,” he said.

“As such, the user experience is independent of internal system issues and network limitations. We’ve built [many] of the new Truist mobile and web applications in the cloud to reap the benefits of being closer to the end user. The cloud also empowers us to scale to manage client traffic and proactively guard against bot and data attacks.”

To discover how edge cloud technology can help FIs optimize API-based products, download the playbook.