Business accounting software provider Xero has launched an open banking platform, designed to allow financial institutions of all sizes - including fintechs - to give faster access to financial data to small business customers.Xero is already working with more than 180 financial institutions globally, but these have generally been major banks - including Wells Fargo in the US, NAB in Australia, Barclays in the UK, DBS in Singapore and ASB in New Zealand. These direct integrations have required specialised development and customisation from both Xero and the financial institution."Over the past 11 years, Xero has pioneered direct integrations with some of the world's largest banks. With the Xero bank feeds API, we're now making bank transaction feeds and daily reconciliation available for all Xero-certified financial institutions and fintechs," said Ben Styles, general manager of financial services products at Xero.For instance, invoice financing lenders collecting funds on behalf of customers will be able to keep track of their loan by syncing repayments and reconciling them in Xero.Styles also said that the fintech players who have signed up for Xero's open banking API were able to more rapidly adapt their systems to meet Xero certification than banks, and this was pushing the larger banks to meet Xero's open banking platform requirements."With the Xero bank feeds API, all types and sizes of financial institutions can integrate with Xero to give small businesses the information they need to make crucial business decisions in one platform," Styles said.He suggested the application moves beyond compliance - for instance, foreign exchange providers will be able to sync transactions and balances from accounts into Xero for global businesses who use them to pay overseas customers or suppliers.