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Introduction

The Universal Connect Project (UCP) allows you and your business to connect with financial services such as banks, credit unions, and wealth managers. UCP leverages the best of Open Finance to give you performance, control, resiliency, and cost management, all in a free, open source project.

Install Universal Connect by forking our repository and hosting your own at https://github.com/Universal-Connect-Project/ucw-app.

You can connect to services through internet protocol using verifiable credentials. We can route traffic to:

  • MX
  • Sophtron

Features & Components​

UCP provides borderless, financial connectivity by enabling the flexibility to route your connections based on preference, performance and more. We’ve provided several components to make this possible:

  • Universal Connect Widget UI and Server
  • Institution Server (Coming Soon)
  • Performance Server (Coming Soon)

Universal Connect Widget​

The Universal Connect Widget is a self-hosted application that includes both the user interface (UI) and the server. The application enables you to configure the widget and retrieve the widget as a URL to be hosted via iframe. It is designed to search and display an end user’s institution based on a cached institution list. Using the preferences you configure directly in the application, the widget routes connections to your desired data provider for that specific institution and facilitates the connection.

The front-end application handles searching for institutions, gathering credentials, and connecting to the end user’s accounts.

The Widget Service handles the backend service that completes the following functions:

  • Searches an institution list
  • Hosts institutions list and caches it. The most recent institution list will be stored in the code when you install it.
  • Enables you to configure which providers are available.
  • Handles requests and routes them to providers.
  • Makes decisions about which provider to use.
  • Hosts routing preferences and caches them.

Universal Connect Product Components​

Institution Server (Coming Soon)​

When you install and set up the Universal Connect Widget, the most up to date institution list will automatically be configured with the UCP and be displayed in the UI.

Over time, institution availability changes; institutions may no longer be available or more institutions may be added by different providers. The institution server enables fintechs to login to view and download a list of institutions and self-host it using a simple user interface. It also enables administrators to add or remove institutions.

Additionally aggregators can view, add, and edit institutions from their own aggregations.

Performance Server (Coming Soon)​

The Performance Sever is an optional UCP component that aggregates and provides metrics on the performance of configured connectivity providers. This optional component enables you to configure and choose connections based on the measured performance of connectivity providers. It provides an easy-to-use UI that displays the provider and its performance data. Data provided by the performance server can be used to configure available providers and the order in which providers are indexed in the Widget server. The Performance Server is hosted by the UCP foundation.

Financial institutions and fintechs can sign up to view and download performance data. Aggregators must be invited to sign up and can view and upload performance data.

Preferences and Routing​

The router enables UCW clients to route connectivity to providers either statically or dynamically. Static routing enables clients to decide exactly which institution they want to be aggregated by which provider. Dynamic routing utilizes the performance server to route institutions to providers based on response time, success percentage, and speed weight. The client must use the performance server to use dynamic routing.