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API Design

Making sure banking applications and platform was following the API design guidelines proposed by our team

APIs Platform Product Management
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Scotiabank is one of Canada’s largest banks, serving millions of customers across personal banking, wealth management, and capital markets, with a strong international presence in Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia, and a focus on secure, scalable digital platforms.

Experience

This was one of the most impactful and rewarding experiences of my career. Scotiabank operates at massive scale, with over 90,000 employees across multiple banks and countries, which meant there was no shortage of complex, real-world problems to solve.

One of the core challenges was standardizing application development across five countries. Teams were building similar capabilities in parallel, leading to duplication, inconsistency, and increased risk. The API layer became the critical abstraction. By standardizing APIs, teams could reuse foundational capabilities instead of rebuilding them, accelerating delivery while improving consistency and quality.

Operating in a regulated financial environment also meant security and data protection were non-negotiable. Every product and integration needed to be designed with security, compliance, and customer trust in mind.

As part of my role, I worked closely with technology leaders across Mexico, Chile, and Colombia, helping define and enforce API design principles and partnering directly with teams to design APIs for 15+ core banking products, including checking and savings accounts, credit cards, lines of credit, and mortgages.

Santiago, Chile A picture from Santiago, Chile during my visit

My Contribution

  • Led the development and launch of Bank’s internal developer portal for 5 countries (Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru)
  • Collected and analyzed the internal and external developer needs to drive an API First Design culture
  • Developed the API strategy and roadmap to open up a secure external developer portal for 3rd party developers

API design areas of focus

Pictures

Bogota, Colombia Led API design sessions and Digital Factory onboarding in Bogotá, Colombia, in partnership with Facundo Brusau, Senior API Architect.

Lima, Peru Several Scotiabank branches seen in Lima, Peru