Why REST?

There are a number of reasons why a REST approach makes sense for a data centric service: a REST approach

favors identifying and addressing resources which fits to the data-centric nature of the provided apis (a resource corresponds to a business object)
has actions (POST, PUT, DELETE, GET) which correspond to standard CRUD actions
allows linking to specific business objects or to sets of business objects. This is a very powerfull feature of a REST approach and it allows for easy navigation between business objects.
is simple to develop and use, and very lightweight from an architectural point of view