Foreign exchange rate data is used for many purposes in almost every business. While some businesses make their users do transactions with this data, some businesses develop strategies based on this data. Today, businesses frequently use also historical data on foreign exchange rates. Businesses can make informed decisions regarding international trade, risk management, and investment strategies by analyzing past exchange rate trends and fluctuations. The web services that provide this data are also called historical exchange rate API.

The historical exchange rate API provides businesses and developers with data that is difficult to obtain. It is highly accurate, highly detailed, and contains data from years ago. In this article, we will talk about what historical foreign exchange rate APIs provide us, their pros and cons. Then we will introduce the most popular historical foreign exchange rate API that many businesses and developers actively use.

What Is a Free Forex Historical Data API?

A Forex Historical Data API is an API that provides free historical exchange rate data to developers and businesses. This API provides data for a specific time period, such as opening and closing prices and highs and lows for multiple exchange rates. Users can obtain historical exchange rate data within a certain date range through the API.

Forex historical data APIs usually obtain this data from financial institutions or forex brokers who provide exchange rate data. Additionally, this API allows users to perform financial analysis, review historical performance, and test trading strategies.

There are some pros and cons to using this API. Let’s examine them now.

Pros

Free access: The first plus of a currency conversion API that provides historical data is that it costs nothing. Developers can integrate this API into their projects without any payment.

Accurate historical data: This API provides high-accuracy historical data to its users free of charge. So, users can easily obtain historical data for the currency they want for free.

Application development: Another plus of this API is that it speeds up the application development process. It is very easy to get an API key for free. So, developers can quickly integrate this API into their projects and perform the necessary tests.

Cons

Limited usage: This free API offers limited usage to its users. Its limits are usually based on API requests. For example, 50 requests per month are free. This makes it difficult to use the free currency conversion API in a production environment.

Update speed: Free APIs often have limitations in the speed at which they can update the data they provide. For example, on the paid plan, the exchange rate data is updated every minute, while on the free plan, it can be 5 minutes. The update speed of the API can be important to developers and businesses, as exchange rate data is constantly changing.

Support and quality of service: Free APIs often offer limited support to developers and businesses. In addition, the quality of service of many free APIs may be lower than paid APIs.

Fixer: Best Free Historical Exchange Rate API

home page of the fixer historical exchange rate api

Fixer offers developers and businesses a free, reliable JSON API with its superior technological infrastructure. It is a very comprehensive foreign exchange API.

This API provides both current and historical data for 170 currencies. Its most outstanding feature is the accuracy of the data it provides. It provides data from official financial institutions such as the European Central Bank. Thanks to this feature, companies such as Microsoft, Samsung, and Bershka use this API.

This API serves its users with multiple endpoints. These endpoints are as follows:

  • Supported Symbols Endpoint
  • Latest Rates Endpoint
  • Historical Rates Endpoint
  • Convert Endpoint
  • Time-Series Endpoint
  • Fluctuation Endpoint

Finally, this API is also known as a currency converter API, as it supports the instant conversion of hundreds of currencies with highly accurate data.

Conclusion

All in all, although there are many advantages that a free historical foreign exchange rates API provides to developers and businesses, the disadvantages should not be overlooked. In particular, using a free API in a production environment can cause problems such as providing transactions with data that is not 100% accurate and exceeding limits quickly. For this reason, it is useful to use free APIs for testing purposes in application development processes.

Try our historical foreign exchange rates API, and test its data without any cost.

FAQs

Q: What Are the Advantages of Using Historical Exchange Rate API?

A: Using the Historical Exchange Rate API provides many benefits to developers and businesses. Moreover, it offers several advantages that can enhance their operations. Some of the notable benefits of utilizing this API include the following:

  • Access to Historical Data
  • Financial Analysis
  • Trade and Export
  • Planning and Budgeting
  • Academic and Research Purposes

Q: Which Platforms Use Exchange Rate Data?

A: Foreign exchange rate data is used in platforms that provide services or transactions in financial matters. Some of the platforms using this data are as follows:

  • Financial Institutions
  • E-commerce and International Trade
  • Forex and Money Markets
  • Financial Applications

Q: How Many Currencies Does the Fixer Currency API Support?

A: Fixer API currently supports 170 official currencies. It obtains this currency data from official financial data providers such as the European Central Bank and makes it available to its users.

Q: Does Fixer Historical Exchange Rate API Offer Currency Converter Service?

A: Yes, it does. Fixer API offers its users currency conversion service with live and up-to-date data of 170 currencies. Fixer also provides multiple services to its users, such as historical exchange rates, fluctuation, and time series data with multiple API endpoints.