How DCB Bank Ensures Monetisation via API is ‘Sustainable and Responsible’

How 180+ APIs enable partnerships across fintechs and corporates for DCB Bank ?

DCB Bank’s API stack provides standardised, secure, and modular building blocks across customer onboarding, accounts, payments, and trade. With 180+ APIs, fintechs and corporates can embed banking services directly into their platforms — whether it’s UPI collections for a fintech, automated vendor payments for a corporate, or deposit access for a wealth-tech. This breadth accelerates time-to-market while positioning DCB Bank as the ‘banking engine’ behind diverse ecosystems. Our digital strategy, ENGROS (Engineering Growth with Next-Gen Resilient and Orchestrated Systems), ensures these integrations are both stable and scalable. 

To further simplify collaboration, we are advancing a Connected Banking Platform, integrating core systems and customer touchpoints through secure APIs to enable real-time, contextual financial services.

What is DCB Bank’s strategy to monetise and scale its API platform?

We see APIs not just as infrastructure, but as utilities with value creation. Monetisation comes through tiered access models, transaction-based pricing, and value-added APIs like analytics and compliance. Scaling requires more than volume — it requires automation, elasticity, and strong governance. These elements — automation, APIs, cloud adoption, technology innovation, and data ethics — form the foundation of DCB Bank's IT strategy (AACT+DE), ensuring monetisation is sustainable and responsible. By embedding these into our platform, we ensure that revenue growth doesn’t come at the expense of resilience or ethical use of data.

Our monetisation strategy rests on three levers:

Partnership growth: Scaling reach by onboarding fintechs and platforms where DCB Bank APIs become embedded finance rails.

Transaction-based revenue: Charging per API call, especially for high-volume use cases like payments and account validation.

Premium tiers: Offering advanced APIs with enriched data and analytics as value-added services to corporates.

To scale further, we are investing in Connected Banking, API marketplaces, developer engagement, and tighter security/compliance layers to meet regulatory and partner expectations. As of now our focus is towards partnership growth.

Many incumbent banks grapple with modernizing legacy systems while building new digital capabilities. Could you share DCB Bank's strategy for managing this transition, specifically how your API-first approach helps bridge the gap between core banking systems and newer digital services, and what challenges you've encountered in achieving this integration fluidity?

Most banks do face the dual challenge of running robust legacy cores while building next-generation services. To a large extent this aspect is addressed over time for most, as upgraded systems come into play.

DCB Bank's core systems are upgraded to the latest platforms. However, to address customer expectation, our approach has been to place an API-first architecture as a bridge, creating agility on the front end without impacting the core. Instead of rip-and-replace, we’ve layered an API-first architecture on top — giving us agility without destabilising the foundation.

Like many, we do face the dual challenge of managing stable core systems while enabling new-age customer journeys. Our strategy has been API-first middleware orchestration:

• We expose core functionalities via APIs without disturbing the underlying core banking stability.

• We use an API gateway and microservices layer as a “digital facade” to abstract complexity and deliver agility.

• This approach allows us to experiment with new digital journeys — payments, onboarding, lending — while keeping the core system reliable.

Challenges:

• Data consistency and latency across layers.

• Reskilling teams to think modular instead of monolithic.

• Managing compliance while opening systems to external players.

• But overall, the API-first model has been crucial in bridging core systems and new age solutions/services, delivering faster innovation with reduced risk.

Beyond just serving data, How is DCB Bank exploring or implementing AI and Machine Learning within your API ecosystem?

APIs at DCB Bank are no longer just about serving data — they are about serving intelligence. We are embedding AI and ML into APIs for deduplication, fraud detection, and predictive analytics. For fintechs and businesses, this means consuming intelligence as a service, not just raw data. Every step is governed by our data ethics framework, ensuring transparency and fairness. This is how AACT+DE and ENGROS converge: intelligence delivered responsibly, and resilience enhanced through smarter systems.

Guided by our Data & Ethics framework (AACT+DE), these APIs deliver value without compromising fairness or compliance. Within ENGROS, they strengthen resilience by making services smarter, faster, and safer.

We are embedding AI/ML in two key ways:

Fraud detection APIs: Integrating behavioral biometrics and anomaly detection to secure transactions in real time.

Operational efficiency: APIs exposing predictive models for credit scoring and risk monitoring.

The shift to a digital-first, API-centric bank demands specific skill sets and an agile mindset within the technology team. What strategies has DCB Bank implemented to reskill existing talent?

The shift to an API-driven, digital-first model requires more than new systems — it requires a new mindset. Technology only succeeds when people adapt with it. At DCB Bank, we are reskilling teams in areas like API design, cloud-native development, automation, and ethical AI. Cross-functional squads, agile delivery, and DevSecOps practices are part of this cultural shift. Our IT strategy (AACT+DE) provides the technical pillars, while our digital philosophy (ENGROS) inspires our people to build resilient, orchestrated, and future-ready platforms.

We recognise that technology transformation is also a people transformation. Key initiatives include:

• API & microservices bootcamps for internal teams to adopt new design and coding practices.

• Cross-functional squads where functional specialists collaborate with API developers, accelerating knowledge transfer.

• AI/ML literacy programs for all technology staff, so APIs are built with intelligence in mind.

• Agile ways of working (scrums, sprints, DevSecOps) institutionalized to embed speed and adaptability.

• This combination ensures our teams evolve continuously, aligning talent capabilities with the demands of a digital-first, API-centric bank.