Getting Started - Authorization as a Process or User

Authorization

finAPI follows the OAuth 2.0 Standard for authorizing applications and users within them. OAuth uses the terminology of clients and users. A client represents an application that calls finAPI services. A service call might be in the context of a user of the client (e.g: getting a user's bank connections), or outside any user context (e.g.: editing your client's configuration, or creating a new user for your client). In any case, every service call must be authorized by an access_token. The documentation below describes how to set up the client's users, or for the client itself.

Scenarios and Use Cases

A finAPI customer may want to use a single finAPI Data Intelligence solution or combine/use several of them for his product flow. Moreover, such a flow may require to use finAPI’s multi-blanking service, finAPI Access, too.

Regardless of that, use cases can be divided into two basic scenarios.

	Process: use case with defined result and timespan	User: long running process
Description	gathering data/result(s) from one or several finAPI services	continuous / repetitive usage of finAPI service(s)
Example	KYC Check to grant access to a website Digital Account Check in a credit/loan application process Risk analysis before granting access to online gaming	banking app insurance app, detecting life changing events
Authentication	creating a process	creating a user (identity)
Service to obtain the access token	Process Controller	Access

finAPI Access Environments

For testing purposes on the DI sandbox environment, the following Access instance has to be used: https://sandbox.finapi.io. Please refer to https://docs.finapi.io/?product=access for API documentation.

finAPI Process Controller

The finAPI Process Controller instance in finAPI’s sandbox is https://di-processctl-finapi-general-sandbox.finapi.io. Please refer to https://docs.finapi.io/?product=processctl for API documentation.

Use Case 1: Process

To simplify use cases that provide a one-time result - like the GiroIdent KYC check - finAPI introduced the Process Controller, which provides and manages an identity transparently for the customer with a simple two-step procedure. The Process Controller is a wrapper service on top of finAPI Access.

The major prerequisite is to have a valid set of client credentials: client_id and client_secret.

Step 1: Getting Authorized

A process is created by calling the finAPI Process Controller POST /processes endpoint using the customer OAuth client credentials (and a client reference identifying the customer’s implementation):

{
  "clientId": "8f92e604-b9b9-11ec-8422-0242ac120002",
  "clientSecret": "8f92ea14-b9b9-11ec-8422-0242ac120002",
  "clientReferences": [
    {
      "clientReference": "<customer-reference>"
    }
  ],
  "processId": "USER_ONLY"
}

CODE

The response will refer to the customer reference and include a process token, that identifies the process instance.

{
  "processes": [
    {
      "clientReference": "<customer-reference>",
      "processToken": "8f92ec58-b9b9-11ec-8422-0242ac120002"
    }
  ]
}

CODE

Step 2: Get the OAuth Token

With the process token, the (finAPI Access-) user OAuth token (required to get authorised GiroIdent API calls) can be retrieved from the Process Controller endpoint GET /processes/{process-token}?invalidate=true.

The response will look like this:

{
  "accessToken": "89e3b64c-b9ba-11ec-8422-0242ac120002"
}

CODE

Sequence diagram (GiroIdent as an example)

Use Case 2: User

Step 1: Get authorized as a client in Access

The major prerequisite for getting authorized as a client (i.e application) is having a valid set of client credentials: client_id and client_secret.

To get authorized as a client, make a call to Access POST /oauth/token and pass the following request parameters:

grant_type=client_credentials
client_id
client_secret

The client authorization request response:

{
  "access_token": "fnsXpguIBkChhCsN8bVty9Y68AsUvJYyXUILcsFBvWABF03k8Ov68Ev2BTyANuBjyX8r9XuuTajNM2zZnhZMDjKWHN4lbRSRcVhg9_PcE7eeXHm0t28ZjzM4TJlrupZD",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": 3599,
  "scope": "all"
}

CODE

To get authorized as a Client, use the obtained access_token as input for Access QUICK AUTH.

Step 2: User

The major prerequisite for creating a user is getting authorized as a client with the help of the obtained access_token in Step 1.

To create a user, make a call to Access POST /users and pass the following request body:

{
  "id": "username",
  "password": "password",
  "email": "email@localhost.de",
  "phone": "+49 99 999999-999",
  "isAutoUpdateEnabled": false
}

CODE

The user creation request response:

{
  "id": "username",
  "password": "password",
  "email": "email@localhost.de",
  "phone": "+49 99 999999-999",
  "isAutoUpdateEnabled": false
}

CODE

Step 3: Get authorized as a user

The major prerequisite for creating a user is getting the user’s data, such as password and id (username) from Step 2.

To get authorized as a user, make a call to Access POST /oauth/token and pass the following request parameters:

grant_type=password
client_id
username
password

The user authorization request response:

{
  "access_token": "nnsXpguIBkChhCsN8bVty9Y68AsUvJYyXUILcsFBvWABF03k8Ov68Ev2BTyANuBjyX8r9XuuTajNM2zZnhZMDjKWHN4lbRSRcVhg9_PcE7eeXHm0t28ZjzM4TJlrupZD",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": 3599,
  "scope": "all"
}

CODE

To get authorized as a User, use the obtained access_token

Post Step: Deleting the User Identity

Please use Delete the authorised user service in Access (if your overall use case requires this step at a certain final point).

Use of an Existing User Identity

If you experience any problems during the integration or have any questions, please contact our support, support@finapi.io at any time. Our customer success team is looking forward to supporting you during your integration journey.