Transforming Banking with DevOps

The banking industry is undergoing a significant digital transformation. The emergence of fintechs and industry disruptors is forcing traditional banks to innovate faster than ever before to remain competitive and address the needs of the digital-first customer. Delivering these solutions effectively and at speed often requires an overhaul of legacy technology and the emergence of new technological-driven processes. Enter DevOps, a combination of practices and tools that is driving the future of the financial services industry.

We spoke with Arnab Mitra, programme manager at the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) about the role of DevOps in banking and the need for industry collaboration to further accelerate transformation.

Q1: What challenges have traditionally hindered banks from adopting DevOps, and how has the industry’s perspective shifted to embrace this methodology?

Traditionally, banks were slow to adopt DevOps due to regulatory constraints, concerns about data security, and a legacy mindset that is naturally more hesitant towards change and innovation. However, the pandemic accelerated the need for banks to offer digital services, which in turn hastened the adoption of DevOps.

As the benefits of DevOps became clear, banks have realised that they needed to embrace this methodology to remain competitive and keep pace with nimbler fintechs, while offering new services that are enabled through best-of-breed technologies. In today’s rapidly evolving IT landscape, DevOps streamlines transformation and enables banks to deliver innovative digital services at speed and scale.

With the global drive for transformation, banks recognised that if they don’t transform, they risk being left behind, and at a significant cost. For example, a 2023 IDC Financial Insights survey found global banks are on track to spend $57.1 billion on legacy payments technology in 2028.

It’s therefore no surprise that over 80% of financial services firms have embraced DevOps practices, reflecting the widespread adoption and recognition of its benefits in the industry.

Q2: What is BIAN’s approach to DevOps? How is this reflected in BIANs offerings?

BIAN is built on collaboration across the industry and we use DevOps methodology within our member activities to encourage this. Working groups formed of members from different organisations within banks, technology vendors and consultancies come together to share thoughts, ideas and experiences to collaborate on innovative solutions, for example producing API specifications.

Another example is our Coreless Banking initiative, which completed its third iteration last year. BIAN took a DevOps approach to this initiative, which was developed by a collaboration of leading banks and technology vendors, including HSBC, Zafin and IBM. The initiative, which aims to tackle the interoperability challenges banks face, resulted in an API-based services architecture that empowers banks to integrate best-of-breed technology seamlessly.

Coreless Banking leverages the DevOps processes of the individual participating members to bring their components (solutions) into a published state, for other participants to use and integrate with. This allows for quick releases when any changes are required for any individual member. At the same time, using the BIAN standard for the API interface specifications means the integrated solution still works.

Q3: Can you share any examples of how you’ve implemented DevOps principles on a more practical level?

BIAN’s materials, including our Service Domains, are made available on the cloud, allowing members to access and use BIAN APIs for various applications within their organisations.

Using BIAN’s framework, external parties can access our materials and create their own CI/CD pipeline, adapting it to their own needs. Members also have access to BIAN tooling, with functionality that allows users to match their APIs with BIAN APIs.

In addition to this, we have an automated feedback loop and message modellers which enable rapid updates to BIAN models, once manually approved. Members can compare artefacts with the BIAN model content, helping to ensure APIs are compliant, within our framework. These automated processes guarantee consistent quality across all of our materials, eliminating individual preferences and ensuring regulatory compliance

While we have been using DevOps in our approach for many years, we are now exploring how AI is enabling and evolving our DevOps operations.

Q4: How is AI transforming DevOps practices and environments within the financial services industry?

AI is a true game-changer within the industry. When applied to DevOps, the scope for automation within these environments is huge. BIAN is exploring many potential use cases for the technology. For instance, we’re looking at how we can use AI to generate sample data for Service Domain APIs to create a sandbox with quality test data that developers can use to mock up innovative solutions using these APIs.

Additionally, we are piloting an AI-based API mapping app to automate the mapping process by 50-60%, significantly reducing human effort. We are focusing on training our AI-Engine with quality data, and feedback from our members supports the finetuning of this app. This means that members using our model will benefit from streamlined processes and enhanced efficiencies, while BIAN benefits from member feedback which continuously trains and improves our AI models, further supporting our collaborative environment.

Q5: How important will DevOps be for the future of banking? Why is collaboration the key to transformation?

As banks continue to focus on digital transformation, DevOps practices will be essential for delivering innovative products and services at speed. When development and operations teams work together closely, they can identify and address issues more efficiently, improve communication and ultimately deliver better results. By breaking down siloes – not only within organisations but across the financial services ecosystem – it creates a more cohesive and successful work environment.

With the advent of new technologies, including AI, it’s now more important than ever for teams to share ideas about how this technology can be used safely and competitively. This will help traditional banks keep up with challengers and fintechs to deliver the best services to customers possible.