API Evangelist Conversation with Heather Xiao, Founder and CEO at Horizon Zero Ltd

Hi, how are you? I’m good. I am Heather Xiao.

I, uh, I am, uh, uh, the founder and CEO of a new company called Horizon Zero. Uh, I do research, uh, consulting and training on the strategy of open banking, open finance and smart data. And also I aspire to be a advocate for it as well.

Yeah. Thank you. Indeed. We have known each other for, I think, for 10 years. So you’ve been API hero for 10 years and for the many years as well. I’m really, uh, I feel privileged to be in your podcast and, um, thank you for inviting me. Uh, so I have been in the API, open banking, uh, open finance. Uh, well, for the, uh, yeah, past decade, uh, or even longer, uh, and, uh, I have been working in the API field, uh, and later on, uh, open, uh, open banking field, uh, in different business sectors. So, for example, uh, at earlier stage, I was the API, uh, head of API for Quantus Airways. Um, then that exposes me to the open concept. Um, then I have been working with several banks in Australia and also, uh, back to the UK since 2019, um, to, uh, basically work on, uh, progressing open banking. Uh, and the reason most recently I was the chief product officer at OBIE. So right now it’s called OBL, Open Banking Limited, um, responsible for the, um, trust framework for the resilience of the product, uh, and also, uh, on business development to advocate open banking and how it will help our business and help our customers to create, to have better life experiences.

Yeah. Um, smart data actually, uh, is a UK term. So, uh, right now in the UK, we are working on, uh, actually, we have a lot of energy to progress smart data. And smart data basically, uh, is an extension, uh, in my view of open banking and open finance. So, there are, uh, open banking, open finance, and smart data are all about, uh, securely sharing customer data. So, uh, open banking sector for, uh, open banking fors focus on the payment sector only. So, payment initiation, account information, uh, so using, you know, you can those services to support the small businesses and consumers, um, to create innovation. Uh, Open Finance enlarges this into the holistic financial services sector. Then smart data, uh, make it even further, makes it even further. So, uh, not only, uh, it, uh, Focuses on, um, finance, financial services. It also broadened the service, the innovation into sectors like education, um, health, transport, uh, energy, et cetera. So, uh, it’s actually has a much bigger scope, uh, but it will deliver much more profound, um, customer experience transformation, I believe.

You are absolutely right. So the core of smart data or open banking is about data belongs to the customer. Customer owns their data and they should control their data. And data should render more. better experiences for the customers. And in my view, smart data will profoundly transform our human experiences. And so imagine, well, if you think about our current industry, they all stem from the human needs, right? For example, financial services or transport or health, they all because we have a need to, um, To rely on the industry to make our life better. But now with the new technology, new emerging technologies or these new business models, for example, open banking or smart data, it uses the emerging technology to see what are the possibilities we can achieve by using those emerging technologies so that we can build more innovative services through better leveraging of the data.

It is a very, very good question. Can I? I think in the short term, um, better, uh, smart data can create better outcomes. very much. More incentive for the businesses, for the industry, I feel is a key challenge for us to, um, to work on, to focus on, to really enable the industry to have the environment to, uh, can you continue to innovate at the same time, realize business value. And I feel, and this is going to increasingly become the reality, um, because, uh, smart data is about creating the, um, The new services, which we would rely on the business to create, to innovate. And so that I think new opportunities will emerge more and more as we build out more and more success.

Absolutely. I think if you look back when we have been working on open banking user adoption, customer adoption, it has been, um, Yeah. A good success so far. Absolutely. But at the same time, it has been a challenge because in my view, open banking only all focuses on one area, which is payment, but customer experience. Let me talk about, um, when we create a new, uh, Good customer experience for a, um, a more, uh, vetting platform. For example, it involves different business sectors to make that holistic experience work, but if you only rely on payment itself and it’s very difficult to achieve that, then we have the, um, smart data. in place, then we can use the, uh, the shareable data, standardized shareable data across different business sectors so that we can create much more meaningful services to support the, you know, the new wedded couples, for example, uh, or many other use cases, uh, many other customer experiences. areas, for example, in health, um, and in transport. Um, if I, I give you another example, uh, in, in, in the health sector, um, how smart data can render better value for the human beings. Um, for example, if I say my, um, Uh, one day my my grandmother, uh, may, uh, feel fell ill and I I’m going to take her to the emergency center to to receive treatment. And at this point in time, um, it’s highly likely that when I take her to the to the health center, um, they may have the existing record of my grandmother’s to to understand her, uh, health history or what, uh, what is her, um, You know, the medicine she cannot take or et cetera, et cetera. But when we have the smart data, then, um, you can, um, you know, if you can imagine, um, each of the health centers, uh, NHS or the, uh, uh, medical centers, they all have the medical history of my grandmother and they all know, uh, what, uh, medicine is effective to her, uh, what blood type she has. So. Uh, this data having it in place will really save so much time and also the money for the, for the health industry as well to give effective in time treatment, uh, for my grandmother. And furthermore, uh, if, for example, we have the variable, um, like product, so like a smartwatch, for example, that can, um, monitor my grandmom’s health throughout the, you know, the months and the years, and so that we can provide, um, rather than reactive payment, but preventative, uh, treatment through the use, usage of smart data that will massively lift the health service, um, to patients, uh, like my grandmother. So, so I think there’s millions of those cases, use cases that, um, we can, um, Pursue and once we have the capabilities in place and I would firmly believe that transformative experiences will be given on to us as human beings and also it will benefit our society as a whole.

Uh, yeah, another great question. I think the, We should talk, uh, both of them because, um, I think, you know, today’s age and technology driven innovation has become very prominent. And that’s because we, we are using technology or APIs as a catalyst to create new changes. Uh, and now we have technology in place. Then we have to work with the businesses and with the regulators and with the government to Make sure that we create the environment for technology really to deliver the value it should deliver to us. Um, so I, I felt, uh, we should, um, pursue the progress in, in all these areas, including technology, business regulation, um, and, um, yeah, just creating the environment, the ecosystem for everyone to, uh, contribute.

Um, yeah, I think, um, um, I, I love the fact that APIs actually connect us so closely to meaningful connections with the world. I think that’s, Probably why intuitively from, um, you know, years ago, I felt this connection of turning data into useful information in an organization. And that that was where I started to do. And that was so beneficial for a customer or for for the customer using, um, internal and internally. And then now we, uh, once we have the useful information, we use APIs to Um, turn the information into knowledge, into executable actions, insights, and so that we can use the information, join them across business sectors, even to create more meaningful experiences. To me, I felt is, um, is very profound. And, and that’s what I, love to do. And actually my, um, I think my, um, aspiration is that I could, uh, help with the smart data industry to, um, to draw, join the dots and create almost like, help to create almost like a tube map or London underground map, like mapping system so that, uh, With the power of APIs and we can, um, and together with the ecosystem to create value. And I think that that’s what’s what my value is at.