Glossary

Account Information Services Provider or ‘AISP’ refers to a person licensed by the CBB to provide account information services using an online portal, mobile or smartphone application, device or other electronic media which a consenting customer can use to obtain aggregate or consolidated information about his/her account balances with ASPSP. The role of an AISP is restricted to providing the technology or other means in order to provide account information to the customer and the handling of communication or electronic documents between the customer and the licensees should the terms of the offer include such services. AISPs must not receive or otherwise handle customer funds in the course of providing account information services.

An Application Programming Interface or ‘API’ is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. An API specifies how software components should interact.

Account Servicing Payment Service Providers or ‘ASPSP’ refers to the CBB licensees (include conventional retail bank licensees and Islamic retail bank licensees) who provide and maintain a payment account for a user/customer and, in the context of the Open Banking Ecosystem are entities that publish Read/Write APIs to permit, with customer consent, payments initiated by third party providers and/or make their customers’ account transaction data available to third party providers via their API endpoints.

Bahrain Open Banking Framework or ‘Bahrain OBF’ has been developed considering the relevant use cases (payments as well as account information sharing) that has several business opportunities for the banks and third party providers (TPPs) and caters to the customer’s unique needs in Bahrain. The framework covers both technical as well as non-technical aspects of Open Banking.

Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method or ‘CDCVM’ is a card network supported verification process performed by the customer and is applicable when the customer assesses transactions originating from mobile devices. CDCVM helps evaluate the legitimate owner of the payment instrument.