Case Study: North American Bank achieves API-driven modernization and streamlined merchant onboarding with the Akana Platform

North American Bank - Customer Case Study

A large U.S. bank — the fifth-largest commercial bank — set out to accelerate its digital transformation by modernizing merchant payment and core services to eliminate friction for partners and customers. The bank faced outdated onboarding and API processes, organizational and cultural resistance, and the need for developer buy-in to speed time-to-first-transaction and enable seamless cross-selling.

The bank partnered with Akana and adopted a hybrid API platform (initially SaaS with an option to move on-premises) to design and document APIs, automate onboarding, enforce consistent security, convert SOAP to REST, and aggregate services. The merchant payment developer portal launched in 2014 and enabled “One_and_Done” real-time account openings and instant add-on services, reducing friction, improving cross-selling and international integrations, and fostering ongoing innovation through hackathons and further API initiatives.