Dennis Dorfmeister & giroAPI – The importance of good frameworks and technical designs
One of Tink's Engineering Managers in Germany, Dennis Dorfmeister, has been named to the advisory board of giroAPI to help shape the future of open banking in the region. Here we spoke to Dennis to find out a little more about his role and what he hopes to achieve on the board.
Tink Engineering Manager, Dennis Dorfmeister, has been appointed to the advisory board of giroAPI, an open banking initiative led by the Association of German Banks.
Dennis oversees the development and maintenance of integrations with various interfaces offered by banks, driving continuous improvement in connections across the DACH region.
“For us at Tink, from a TPP perspective, this is a valuable opportunity to shape and enhance the technical frameworks that can deliver a new generation of frictionless digital payments.”
Dennis had been developing the German open banking ecosystem with FinTecSystems before Tink joined forces with them in late 2021. Today, he is a key member in our Connectivity team which is building and maintaining integrations with the regulated and unregulated interfaces offered by banks. With a strong engineering background, Dennis oversees the various tech projects which constantly improve our connections to banks across the DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) region.
What is giroAPI?
"giroAPI is essentially an initiative initiated by the Association of German Banks (Bundesverband deutscher Banken),” says Dennis. “It mirrors a framework similar to the SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) scheme, catering to the development of premium application programming interfaces (APIs) and added services and currently focusing on the German market."
The giroAPI initiative is rooted in the Berlin Group, which provides a standard for open banking API frameworks. Dennis, with a focus on payments, is one of three new members recently named to the advisory board. "My role involves representing third-party providers (TPPs) associated with or interested in the initiative, ensuring the technical development aligns with our goals, and maintaining consistent fees among TPPs and banks for the premium APIs."
As a loyal advocate for helping banks provide exceptional open banking frameworks, Dennis, with the support of Tink and Visa, is poised to influence the sector's evolution.
Driving progress, both internally and externally
"For us at Tink, from a TPP perspective, this is a valuable opportunity to shape and enhance the technical frameworks that can deliver a new generation of frictionless digital payments. My personal interest is in building APIs and collaborating with banks to create robust designs for differentiated capabilities.
"And this is also what pushes me internally at Tink. My motivation stems from the desire to drive progress, especially in dealing with larger institutions like banks, which can sometimes be slower in innovation. This requires an evidence and data-driven approach to problem solving to aid banks in delivering high-quality services that can be utilised to the fullest by our customers. As we gear up for PSD3, alongside the potential of giroAPI, the prospects for open banking and open finance are genuinely exciting in the next 1-2 years and beyond."
Dennis's inclusion on the giroAPI board is not all that's keeping him busy at the moment.
"We are doing extensive build-outs for an exciting potential client, as well as lots of work on new territories in Europe as we continue to expand our market-leading connections. And I'm working internally on an improved technical initiative to level up our way of working with incidents, alerts, and reliability."
All in a day's work, Dennis. All in a day's work.
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