Business Entities: An SOA Approach to Progressive Core Banking Renovation

The challenges in banking industry are forcing banks to renovate their core systems to survive fierce competition. A progressive renovation approach is preferable to total replacement because it is less intrusive and risky. In this paper, we present an incremental core banking renovation methodology based on the concept of business entities. We implemented this methodology to develop an SOA solution to dynamic product bundling for an Asian bank. This renovation project provided an opportunity for us to explore SOA design principles regarding service component modularity, service reusability, change management and integration, and also to empirically demonstrate the advantages of the business entity-centric approach in achieving well-designed SOA solutions.