a similar project: http://www.openbankproject.com
BankAPI
11–20 of 87 posts
Re: BankAPI
#12This is a cool project, but considering how over-regulated banks are these days (at least in Europe) I think it's very unlikely that they would actually use this. Most bank software is still written in Cobol code that they have invested four decades into and are now too afraid to rewrite or even touch. So, specifying the requirements for an interbank message system would probably take them a few years already, and im…
It's a really common misconception that "most bank software is still written in Cobol".
Of course it varies from bank to bank, and of course there's still some legacy systems on Cobol. But many banks run primarily Java [1] in their backend. They have to: besides the fact that Java is a much more productive language than Cobol, it's the only way you can actually hire people nowadays! No bank running "most software" on Cobol is sustainable. The supposed fear to rewrite or touch simply isn't real either: if a bank does not understand and therefore care enough for "most" of its infrastructure, it isn't a sustainable bank either. These large corporations tend to be as conservative as you can get, but they are not totally oblivious.
That doesn't mean there are some little used systems still running on ancient stuff. I once heard an anecdote (no way to verify if true) that the Dutch revenue service rehired 80 year olds because they were the only ones that understood how to program some of their old machines that were programmed using wires and knobs.
The financial services market was the first market that was primarily an IT market, and a lot of infrastructure was built up on stuff that is totally unfamiliar nowadays. There are places that will pay you a lot of money for programming in an ancient language.
[1]: It's interesting to think that Java will be the Cobol of next few decades. Although I've seen signs that Scala and even Clojure are entering the banking world as well, which is encouraging.
Re: BankAPI
#13I don't think that's how banking works to be honest.
Money move from bank to bank via the countries central banks if I'm not mistaken. Then the central bank reconcile everything in batch processes to ensure that banks aren't just making up money (well more than they are legally allowed to).
Denmark has had a few occasions in the last few years where this has failed because one bank failed to deliver their transactions one night.
Re: BankAPI
#14I don't think that's how banking works to be honest. Money move from bank to bank via the countries central banks if I'm not mistaken. Then the central bank reconcile everything in batch processes to ensure that banks aren't just making up money (well more than they are legally allowed to). Denmark has had a few occasions in the last few years where this has failed because one bank failed to deliver their transaction…
IIRC, thats mostly done using SWIFT [1]
Re: BankAPI
#15Interesting project
More and more financial institutions are starting to implement messaging using the FIX protocol
Re: BankAPI
#16What's the motivation for this? Is it coming from inside the industry/is it a suggestion/fun project?
I'm don't understand the purpose - it's all about transmission, not data. Banks could sure do sure do with a standardised API, but is interbank message encryption a problem needing solved? I've haven't heard anything like that.
The author is very sure of it's production-readiness. If this transpires to be true, then I could easily see this spec as a good way to encrypt message-based data of all kinds. But where does this bank angle come from?
Re: BankAPI
#17From the docs, I can't figure out how this is "decentralized". All I see are encrypted and compressed.
Re: BankAPI
#18What's the motivation for this? Is it coming from inside the industry/is it a suggestion/fun project? I'm don't understand the purpose - it's all about transmission, not data. Banks could sure do sure do with a standardised API, but is interbank message encryption a problem needing solved? I've haven't heard anything like that. The author is very sure of it's production-readiness. If this transpires to be true, then…
And what does it offer above ssh/ssl on their own?
Re: BankAPI
#19What's the motivation for this? Is it coming from inside the industry/is it a suggestion/fun project? I'm don't understand the purpose - it's all about transmission, not data. Banks could sure do sure do with a standardised API, but is interbank message encryption a problem needing solved? I've haven't heard anything like that. The author is very sure of it's production-readiness. If this transpires to be true, then…
It appears to be from https://trustly.com/en/ so perhaps they use it internally and are open sourcing it.
Re: BankAPI
#20What's the motivation for this? Is it coming from inside the industry/is it a suggestion/fun project? I'm don't understand the purpose - it's all about transmission, not data. Banks could sure do sure do with a standardised API, but is interbank message encryption a problem needing solved? I've haven't heard anything like that. The author is very sure of it's production-readiness. If this transpires to be true, then…
It appears to be from https://trustly.com/en/ so perhaps they use it internally and are open sourcing it.
I should have checked that before commenting, itchy trigger fingers I suppose. It makes a great deal more sense now.