Banks today rely on modern core banking systems that are more flexible and less costly to maintain than obsolete legacy banking systems. They have been spending to replace their legacy systems, integrate their applications across different areas of their business and increase the systems agility of their system infrastructure.
Starting from a clean sheet, Singapore Management University (SMU) has put together a model system for banking operations & technology education and service innovations.
This “teaching bank” is, based on today's architecture best practices; aligned to SMU's Unified Banking Process Framework (UBPF); leveraged on industry's leading banking software and enterprise platforms
SMU Teaching Bank is created for academic purposes only to support banking operations and technology related coursework, labs and student projects. It has been assembled using a mixture of vendor products in order to demonstrate real world change scenarios such as:
- A core banking system replacement
- A bank merger, whereby multiple vendor products need to coexist
It is a real-life platform for
- Reinforcing key lessons through practice
- Learning through discovery
- Generating an on-going supply of “hands-on” assignments and projects for undergraduate and postgraduate students
- Collaboration with banks and product vendors for experimentation and innovations
SMU Teaching Bank on the Cloud
Banking
Banking
TIBCO
System A
Oracle Flexcube
System B
Nucleus Software
Trading System
Progress Apama
Microsoft Sharepoint
LEGEND
ENTERPRISE PLATFORMS
ENTERPRISE SERVICE BUS
SMU tBank in Education
Banking & Financial Services
Students use SMU tBank to learn banking processes such as; account opening, credit evaluation, loan repayments, fund transfers, foreign exchange, standing instructions, GIRO, mobile payments, Two-Factor-Authentication, ATM network management, real-time customer specific promotion offers. Lab questions assess the students understanding of both bank processes as well as financial accounting.
Enterprise Integration
Students use SMU tBank to learn integration technologies such as; Message-Oriented-Middleware, and Service-Oriented-Architecture. Labs exercises include; building integration components that allow different applications in the bank to communicate, and drill-down visualizations of what is actually happen in the integration layer when a fund transfer is executed, for example.
Architectural Analysis
Students use a “lite” version of SMU tBank which is deployed on their laptops, to demonstrate their understanding of 3 main architecture principles; “resiliency” (ability to failover to a standby system), “concurrency” (handling large number of users), and “performance” (response time of the application).
SMU tBank in Research
Enterprise Architecture in Banking
Covers EA best practices in a banking context; alignment to business strategy, EA frameworks and tools, banking industry information models, enterprise platforms (SOA, BPM, BRMS, MDM, EDW), EA principles and design patterns, EA blueprints and roadmaps. Case studies on EA practices in banking. Case study on SMU tBank.
In-Memory Data Grid Use Cases in Banking
Covers performance improvements of data caching, eg; characterization of response times with and without a data cache in front of the core banking system, and the resulting impact on customer satisfaction. Also covers the economics of caching data in front of the core banking system, eg; the cost saving in MIPS incurred on mainframe systems. Covers how massive-scale in-memory data grid technology is used to enable real-time cross-sell to banking customers, eg; next best offers pending in memory, triggered on the next customer interaction. Covers real-time fraud detection.
Core Banking System Replacement
Covers the scenario where a core banking system is replaced, eg; Oracle Flexcube is replaced with Infosys Finacle. The transition from one system to the other can be done with minimum impact to banking channel applications, by using a flexible service oriented architecture. Using SMU tBank as a test bed, specific scenarios can be trialled in conjunction with actual banks in Singapore that want to participate in the study.
Bank Mergers:Technology Migration or Coexistence
Covers the scenario whereby one bank acquires another, and the combined bank needs to make decisions about which technology to keep or discard, and which technologies can coexist. The coexistence of different technologies across the two banks can be achieved with minimal impact to banking channels, by using a flexible enterprise platforms such as; SOA, BPM, BRMS, and MDM. Using SMU tBank as a test bed, specific scenarios can be trialled in conjunction with actual banks in Singapore that want to participate in the study.
SMU Teaching Bank Engagement Model
United Banking Process Framework
UBPF guides all FS programs
Banking Use Cases
UBPF banking use cases inform the post-graduate coursework
Master of IT in Business
Financial Technology & Analytics Track
Banking Solution Architecture
Post-graduate capstone projects specify
the solution architecture for
banking channels
Undergrad projects deliver banking channel prototypes, based on the solution architecture specified by post-grade capstone projects
Banking channel prototypes developed by undergrad projects are integrated into the SMU Teaching Bank architecture, and are in turn used to support hands-on labs for both undergrad and post-grade courses
Financial Services T.O.P.S Initiative at SMU SIS
SMU TEACHING BANK
IS480: IS APPLICATION UPPER
YEAR
CAPSTONE PROJECTS
Financial Services T.O.P.S Initiative at SMU SIS
SMU TEACHING BANK
Master of IT in
Business
CAPSTONE PROJECTS
Trade Finance Solution Architecture
Channels Integration Architecture
General Ledger Solution Architecture
Payment Services Hub
Real-time Gross Settlement Simulator
Service Management System
Last updated on 03 May 2021 .