An interface published by a bank that lets authorised external software query account data or submit payments directly, rather than through file transfer or a web portal.
In Switzerland, most bank APIs are reached through bLink, the SIX platform that standardises the connection, so a software provider integrates once rather than separately with each bank.
For accounting work, a bank API is what makes transactions appear automatically, where EBICS or camt.053 downloads require a file to be fetched and imported.
