Bank Redirect

A bank redirect is a customer journey in which a merchant, payment provider or app hands the user over to their own bank's online banking page or mobile app, where the user signs in, reviews a payment or data-sharing request and approves it, before being returned to where they started. It is the most common way of applying strong customer authentication in open banking, because the customer's credentials stay with the bank and are never shared with the third party. Redirects are used for bank payment initiation, account linking through an account information API, and older bank-based payment methods in Europe such as iDEAL. On mobile devices, app-to-app redirects open the bank's app directly, which usually gives better completion rates than web pages. Alternatives include embedded flows, where the third party collects credentials itself, and decoupled authentication. European rules also say banks must not create open banking journeys that add needless steps.