A US digital identity management platform provider has created a Cloud-based testing environment for application programming interfaces or APIs to help banks comply with open banking rules and the European Union's second Payment Services Directive.

ForgeRock has announced the availability of a so-called sandbox-as-a-service, designed to help banks comply. The sandbox is already in production for several European banks that provide apps and services to more than 35 million consumers.

The primary goal of PSD2 and Open Banking is to encourage greater innovation and competition in financial services. Governments - especially those in thrall to the European Union - are requiring account providers to provide open APIs that allow third-party providers or TPPs to enter the banking and payment ecosystem. At the same time, account providers must also obey a series of technical rules to ensure that their customers' data is secure and only accessible with the appropriate authorisation and consent.

To comply with these technical requirements, according to Forgerock, account providers must provide a facility for TPPs to test new services and applications before the next EU enforcement date of 14 September for regulatory technical standards. ForgeRock’s Sandbox-as-a-Service offers a way of doing this and the firm says that it can make it available in a matter of hours.

ForgeRock says that its so-called sandbox meets the relevant standard for testing Account Information Service Providers (AISPs) and Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs). There is also a ForgeRock Open Banking Sandbox, which supports the key components that application developers require when testing consent, onboarding and access, including account and transaction API (the endpoint requests and responses for account requests), payment initiation API (the endpoint requests and responses for payment requests) and security profiles.