The intersection of banking and application programming interfaces (APIs) is an increasingly hot topic, with the potential in future for corporates to programme their own interface with their banks.

According to an article in American Banker, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) customers will have that ability by the end of this year. The company's application will allow its customers to tailor the way they interact with their banks.

Driving this technological development is the need of corporates to have more control over how they send data to their banks and how they mandate banks to process payments on their behalf.

Patricia Hines, a senior analyst with Celent, told the magazine: "Banks send their clients' treasury departments these big flat files of data and a lot of times it involves data that the company doesn't need. I could see some clients saying, 'Let me come in and get what it is that I need on my own terms.' "

But Hines points out that one potential challenge is that treasury management systems will need to integrate with the new bank-company interface and it's not yet clear how that will work. She adds: "A lot of them are using packaged software. Will they begin to push their vendors? It is a little bit of a chicken-and-egg situation.

While banks certainly stand to benefit from allowing other companies to tap into their APIs, it remains to be seen exactly how commercial clients will be able to enhance their own customer experience.