1.0 Introduction

Owned by Sheri-Lee.Paulse
Nov 01, 2022
3 min read

Contents

1.1 Strategic Rationale

One of the Business and Technical working groups key focus areas is the promotion of system efficiency, safety and innovation through the use of the API Standards. This is done by supporting the API Centre and the Council by identifying and assessing opportunities that are of strategic importance to the ecosystem and that support Standards User's uptake and partnering.

To this end the Business working group has drawn from international precedent and experience that a critical component of API uptake and usage will be Third Party confidence that a standardised API will meet reasonable performance expectations so they can viably support their customer propositions.  The role of industry level API performance and monitoring aims to support this outcome.

API performance and monitoring focusses on:

  • Ensuring that API Providers are supporting Third Party use cases by performing within agreed targets.

  • Enabling a Third Party to be confident that when they make an API call, that the API Provider’s response will be provided in within a reasonable performance parameter.

  • Giving a Third Party confidence that that their service, or use case, will not be unreasonably constrained or impacted by an API Providers technical performance.

API performance and monitoring is distinct from:

  • API usage reporting – Currently in the form of monthly metrics e.g. reporting on API volume of usage, and;

  • API Provider readiness reporting – Currently in the form of implementation readiness reporting published online.

Internationally, there are examples of performance monitoring becoming crucial to the success of the wider ‘Open Banking’ ecosystem for this reason.

Where a country’s performance monitoring system provides insufficient or incomplete data, it is common to see performance monitoring sites established that meet Third Party requirements, for example:

It is important for the API Centre to establish a performance monitoring approach for New Zealand that sets targets that are able to balance Third Party needs and requirements against the realities of implementing the standards for API Providers. It is also important to clarify and agree the industry’s approach ahead of NZ’s CDR potentially setting out an alternative.

1.2 Summary and background

The API Centre and Working Groups initially identified the requirement for a performance monitoring service in a mature ecosystem during the pilot project phase in whilst acting under the API Workstream of the Payments Direction programme in 2019. At that time this was deemed a very low priority area for focus as performance monitoring requires both active in production APIs to measure, and subsequent Third Party demand and expectations of minimum performance to support use cases.

In mid-2021, as API Providers progressed implementations and bilateral agreements emerging, the API Centre’s Business Working Group considered it necessary and appropriate to establish a performance monitoring approach.

In Q4 2021 the Business and Technical working groups began to assess the options available to the API Centre for API performance and monitoring.  The working groups focused on establishing an initial set of requirements that are proportionate to the industry’s early stage of development, with the expectation this will evolve and strengthen over time.

1.3 Approach and principles

The API Centre Business and Technical working groups have jointly developed the recommended requirements of a performance monitoring programme. The Business working group focused on the framework and structure of the proposed approach, and the technical working group developed the technical detail performance measures.

Through discussion with both groups, a set of principles were proposed that would drive decision making on how the API Centre should approach each component. 

The principles are:

  1. API performance requirements should be flexible so they can be both achievable and strengthened over time.  This allows the performance framework to be iterated upon as the industry matures and gains experience.

  2. Third Party use case requirements, balanced against what is technically possible at API Providers, will be used to benchmark minimum expected performance.

As the industry matures, future considerations will include:

  • API performance and monitoring digital tools are expected to be utilised in the future.

  • API performance and monitoring requirements will be frequently reviewed and strengthened over time.