Re-Engineering a Core Banking System - Learning Launch

Challenge

I'm a member of a consulting company and my challenge is to re-engineer a Core Banking system using  a standard methodology to achieve a more flexible and scalable Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)  based system. A core banking system consists of a set of functions, including deposit and withdrawal  money to/from checking and savings accounts, apply for loans and all other on-line banking services.   There has been already several meetings with the Banking IT and Business organizations where we have  identified their main pain points, and the component of the core banking that will bring the best business  benefit. The scope is strict to a Core Banking system.

Selection

Our team has met with the customer several times and have selected the customer on-boarding function  to use as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to satisfy the customer and provide the basis and standards  for the development of the full Core Banking functions.

Application

Our MVP will focus on the realization of the customer on-boarding function of the core banking using the  IBM's agile architecture methodology named "Service Oriented Modeling and Architecture (SOMA-  Agile)". It is critical that the methodology we use is validated and used by all Service development  lifecycle (SDLC). Our methodology will have a two-week iterative cycle and a playback will be provided  and the end of every two weeks where the IT technical and the business teams can provide feedback.

The solution architect team met with the customer twice to gather requirements, pain points and identify  functions and the software involved in the core banking re-engineering solution. We also identified the  Industry standard data model, the external systems we need to interface with, and the points of variability  in the process flow where a business rule will be used. During these sessions with the customer we  finalize the MVP and defined a high-level architecture overview including Business Process Manager,  Enterprise Service Bus, and a Business Rules Engine. The customer provided the "AS-IS" process flow  and at the end of a 5-day workshop we should produce the "To-Be" process flow, and, with the  collaboration of key	stakeholders we'll identify the gaps in the process flow and brake it down into multiple  services. These services will be prioritized for development, test and full deployment.

Insight

By applying the launch tool, we identified our assumptions and validated a detailed implementation  approach, including the sign-off of the To-Be process flow, and the Industry Data Model. During the  implementation phase the process flows will be detailed, the business rules defined, and the protocol to  be used with each external system identified. There are multiple banking products associated with an on- boarding customer function, so the MVP will focus on a checking and saving products, which means 80%  of the banking business. All other banking products will then be prioritized and implemented using the  SOMA methodology and SDLC standards used by the MVP.

Approach

One	of	the	customer	requirements	is	to	use	a	SOA	approach	based	on	the	SOMA-Agile	methodology	to	 insure	it	can	be	repeated/reused	by	all	other	Core	Banking	functions.

