New BIAN architecture models aim to increase bank efficiency and enable business agility

100% of banks agree that the adoption of SOA standards will increase their ability to compete — finds BIAN industry study

3 July 2012 — BIAN, the Banking Industry Architecture Network, today announces the launch of its new Service Landscape, version 1.6 (‘SL 1.6’), which includes multiple new Service Domain definitions. These new Service Domains will allow BIAN’s community of 31 members, including Credit Suisse, UBS and ING, the ability to consume and implement the BIAN models. This comes as BIAN releases new findings of the banking industry’s perception of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and its impact on the business of banking. 78% of banks expect SOA standards to reduce IT costs by at least 25%, with 44% expecting to experience a reduction of 50% in IT costs. All of the banks surveyed agreed that the adoption of SOA standards will increase their ability to compete in the current market.

From today, any bank or vendor will be able to incorporate the Service Domain definitions into their core banking implementations, allowing them to take advantage of these expected IT cost reductions — SunGard is already implementing and progressing its Ambit Core Banking system at Erste Group, one of the leading financial services provider in central and eastern Europe, based on the work in progress material. This production of tangible solutions marks a real milestone for BIAN and its members.

The Service Landscape is a blueprint for banks to develop architecture roadmaps that support flexible integration within existing application landscapes, as well as with external solutions. It breaks down banking functionality into discrete capabilities and defines service interfaces to those capabilities. Today, BIAN also launches an updated ‘How To’ guide, which provides guidance in applying SL 1.6. Following practitioner feedback, this guide has been completely rewritten to make it more accessible to non-members.

Steve Van Wyk, CIO of ING Bank and Chairman of the BIAN Board, said: “Release 1.6 is yet another big step for BIAN in our mission to shape the future of banking services. The collaboration amongst our member banks, vendors and service providers is building momentum in the deliverance of a tangible portion of our Service Landscape.”

Van Wyk continued: “BIAN has been making great progress on all fronts. Our membership numbers continue to expand and this delivery of the new Service Landscape not only allows members to really see the fruits of their labours, but also illustrates members’ commitment to the BIAN roadmap. We are committed to delivering continued progress in a manner that our members can count on and benefit from in a tangible way.”

The roadmap for BIAN is tracked over the next two years, with two updates to the Service Landscape anticipated. The next update will see an additional 50 Service Domains fully described; with the full set of Service Domains for core banking ready within the next 18 months. Once these core service domains have been brought online, the periphery ‘business support’ operations will also be defined, including HR, payroll and legal functionalities — this is expected in 2014.

Additional findings from BIAN’s SOA study:

  • 100% of banks agree that the adoption of SOA standards will increase their institutions’ ability to compete
  • 46.7% of software vendors and consultants expect SOA standards to reduce banks’ IT costs by 10-25%
  • 77.7% of banks expect SOA standards to reduce IT costs by at least 25%, with 44.4% expecting to experience a reduction of 50% in IT costs.

BIAN Service Landscape 1.6

Comments from BIAN members:

Steve Van Wyk, CIO of ING Bank and Chairman of the BIAN Board:
“I would like to extend a special thanks to our dedicated members, whose commitment to BIAN’s mission and sharing of expertise in the working groups has greatly contributed to this release — it is only through this collaboration of wisdom by our members that we are able to deliver such a high quality asset.”

Hans Tesselaar, executive director, BIAN:
“The first six months of 2012 have been busy for BIAN, forming alliances with other industry standards and bringing onboard new members. In parallel to this, the working groups have been very busy defining the Service Domains. Keen to demonstrate tangible benefits, we’re delighted to launch this new Service Landscape. The future of banking lies in working together to co-create solutions and I look forward to working closely with all the BIAN working groups on the deliverance of SL 2.0.”

Stephen Lindsay, head of development, SWIFT Standards and chairman of BIAN’s Payments working group:
“SL 1.6 represents a significant evolution of BIAN’s core content. From a Payments working group standpoint, we were able to share input and gain insight from a greater range of experts than with previous releases, due to BIAN’s recent growth. The content is stronger and more usable as a result. We will continue to refine and expand our payments-related content, building on this foundation.”

Jürgen Späder, chief technology officer, Lending at FERNBACH Software and chairman of BIAN’s Lending working group:
“The new Service Landscape constitutes a big step forward for BIAN and the Lending working group in particular. As well as publishing the first Business Scenario, we have identified, documented and refined the service operations that enable ‘Loan Origination — Corporate Lending’. The strength of the content produced is indicative of the very strong and cooperative partnerships that exist within the Working Group. With more members now participating, we look forward to a much faster and more efficient delivery of future Business Scenarios.”

Andy Ousterhout, MDM product management, Global Financial Services Sector, IBM and chairman of BIAN’s Party working group:
“We have made significant advancements in the depth of definitions relating to Party in SL 1.6 and BIAN as a whole continues to gain consensus on critical definitions. There are live projects at member banks which will benefit from these advancements.”

Notes to Editors:

About the survey
BIAN recently undertook a survey of 24 banks, vendors and consultants, exploring attitudes towards, and expectations of SOA within the banking industry. Respondents were predominantly architecture roles: systems architect, chief architect, enterprise architect, etc. The survey was conducted between 25th May 2012 and 25th June 2012.

About BIAN
Established in 2008, The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) is an independent, member owned, not-for-profit association to establish and promote a common architectural framework for banking interoperability issues. BIAN’s goal is to define SOA and semantic definitions for IT services in the banking industry. The community focuses on creating a standard semantic banking services landscape, while ensuring consistent service definitions, levels of detail and boundaries. This will help banks to achieve a reduction of integration costs and use the advantages of a service-oriented architecture.

Financial institutions, software vendors, and system integrators, along with technology partners, are invited to join the association and play a collaborative role with other industry leaders in defining, building and implementing next-generation banking platforms.

BIAN Members: ABN AMRO, Banco Galicia, Callataÿ & Wouters, Capital Banking Solutions, CGI, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, COREtransform, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Postbank, FERNBACH, HCL Axon, IBM, ifb group, IKOR, Infosys, ING, innobis AG, kutxa, Microsoft, Rabobank, SAB, SAP, SunGard, Standard Bank of South Africa, SWIFT, Scotiabank Group, Temenos,  UBS, UniCredit Group, Zürcher Kantonalbank.