VTB Bank
Introduction of the Portal
The developer portal operates as a unified access point to API Platform providing a convenient interface for exploring, testing, applying for integration and managing API’s lifecycle. Developer portal by VTB welcomes not only developers set to explore the technical side of API integration, but equally business representatives — product owners and managers. To meet expectations of both these groups a landing page answering major tech and business value questions was created. It boasts a very streamlined and dynamic navigation as well as hints that accompany user through the page in a form of dynamic square-cut element.
More than ever comfort, functionality, usability and convenient user journey are at the centre of the product created by VTB team. The portal features a user-friendly interface and easy to manage role assignment (managers, analysts, developers, testers, accountants) procedures for a transparent & efficient workflow and provides functionality to range and display certain APIs to the selected organization and/or group of organizations. As our customer experience studies show, business representatives consider access management (assigning roles, unloading analytics and transferring owner rights, etc.) a major asset.
When registering on the developer portal through the Unified Authentication System (EPA, passport.vtb.ru), the user gets access to his personal account and creates a profile (corporate or individual) and automatically receives Client ID. Subsequently, this profile acts as a user identifier in the system and allows the owner to manage the organization. It allows new partner connection and API management in literally one click. Not only is the portal’s design user friendly and customer journey it offers developers streamlines and fast, but we have taken care to offer a best-in-class cyber security contour preventing any incoming/outcoming data interception.
No excessive paperwork (even if it’s digital), long reconciliation procedures and other corporate bureaucracy features — we want this developer portal to be just that, well, a developer portal. Company’s profile is created automatically, once its first representative registers an account and logs in. We made sure user interaction on the business customer side runs smoothly no matter what. Once product owner creates company’s profile on the portal and invites developers to participate in testing, etc., they receive invitations linked to their future account page, and business manager can track whether the invitations have been received/opened, and the unique link — activated. The portal can be accessed form mobile, tablet and desktop — even those with the largest screen possible, no precious resolution benefits lost.
The portal offers a detailed API catalogue, each API is accompanied by a thorough description and specification. To test any API developers creates an app and at this stage receives Client ID/Client Secret, indispensable to certify security and access APIs. This said, only three steps/clicks separate developer from the landing page to full-scale API testing. Each developer account provides functionality to simultaneously view API specification and API testing in progress, no need to lose focus as essential features are close at hand. Having combined these two features we aimed to cure one of the most recurring developer struggles — the inability to parallel testing and specification analysis. VTB developer provides functionality to fully manage API lifecycle from testing through follow-up code revision, API updates and modification (including means to publish their newest versions outside our developer portal — and outside API Platform by VTB), publishing new APIs and their remo val from operation. For developer and business user to make the best possible and purely data-based decision whether API needs to be removed from operation, the portal provides thorough analytics and statistics on each API’s requests, their number and frequency in dynamic.
When it comes to design, we believe in healthy minimalism and functionality above all: we opted for a dark theme and few colored elements — both vertical and horizontal for a dynamic effect. Each of the registration steps is accompanied by a dynamic element — hint with a tied link to continue the onboarding.
Why nominated
In March 2021, VTB has introduced its API Platform to the market, offering access to the bank’s financial and non-financial services to external partners via a universal integration interface. (The developer portal was created to provide a seamless and secure access to all of the API Platform’s services to business customers as well as developer teams). Platform’s main goal is to shorten the integration process with external partners and make it as comfortable as possible; it equally facilitates interaction between bank’s in-house teams in terms of development, integration and re-use of created services cutting costs for system development and maintenance.
