SMU Teaching Bank

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).

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.