The data model
There are essentially two options for the data model – buy and then tailor or build. There are a couple of third party financial services data models, of which the most long-standing is that of IBM. It has deep roots and has been built up over time, with multiple projects feeding into the model. Within the enterprise-wide transformation projects
that are becoming more common among financial services institutions, the data and process models are usually the starting point. By far the longest standing commercial data model is IBM’s Information Framework (IFW). Laid down in the 1980s, it has been broadened and deepened over time; in the last few years, IBM has been seeking to link it to a Component Based Model (CBM) in one direction and its Websphere J2EE platform and Rational development tools in the other. IFW previously seemed somewhat detached from the real world, with this limiting its value, but the evolution is meant to create a more valuable resource. An early attempt to map the business of a retail bank started in the early 1980s. A number of core systems development projects during that decade contributed, at the likes of Westpac and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). By no means all (or, indeed, most) of these early projects succeeded but the definition work was fed into IBM’s model, gradually adding detail. There were a few other data models around at this time; there was some linkage to development tools, particularly the HPS offering which at this time resided with IBM itself.
Over the next couple of decades, banks bought the model and it formed the basis of a number of projects. However, it was probably somewhat ahead of its time and, for a fair while, the grandiose systems projects of the 1980s gave way to smaller, focused ones. By 2005, IFW development manager, Pat O’Sullivan, felt there was a ‘seachange’, with a shift in strategy, if not to enterprise-wide, then at least business or division-wide. Such a trend seemed indisputable. He felt that compliance was often the catalyst but that the reengineering work was being done with reuse in mind. The same data, infrastructure, and processes should be reusable for competitive activities. IBM’s proposed solution is made up of three layers, comprising CBM, IFW and the
technical infrastructure
(database, message broker etc). CBM is typically used at the board level for strategy definition. Where is the business going, where are the gaps? The output from the CBM should be a series of cases for investment. IBM’s retail banking CBM
spans business and resource administration; new business development; customer management; customer sales and servicing; product delivery; product services; account services; business portfolio management; and financial management. There are 80 or so boxes for retail banking within the CBM. IBM has a diagram showing the extent of IFW coverage for each of its CBM pieces.
The middle layer is IFW itself. IBM defines this as ‘a
framework of related business models, describing different aspects of the analysis and design required to support a financial institution’. There are IFW Foundation Models, which are used to scope and define business terms. The Financial Services Data Model (FSDM) is at the heart of
IFW. At the outset it was based on nine fundamental business concepts, with this still holding true today. They comprise Involved Party, Arrangement, Condition, Product, Location, Classification, Business Direction Item, Event, and Resource Item. Alongside FSDM are the Financial Services Function Model (FSFM) and Financial Services Workflow Model (FSWM). There are IFW Data, Process and Integration Models below
this. At the top level, examples of Business Models are ‘Provide Outpayment’, ‘Acquire Inpayment’, ‘Provide Account Transfer’, and ‘Provide Arrangement Proposal’. Below these are typically a couple of tiers of Business Services. As if this wasn’t confusing enough, there is also the Financial Services Business Object Model (FS-BOM) which captures those activities within a business process that indicate the presence of reusable services. And there is the Financial Services Interface Design Model (FS-IDM) which is intended to take the analysis within the FS-BOM into a design domain, structuring detailed service definitions and collaborations between services to meet business needs. Below this are the technical infrastructure pieces needed to implement the designs. In an IBM world, these include DB2, Websphere and the Rational tools. The latter were acquired by IBM for $2.1 billion in late 2002.
The main focus in the past was on the foundation models, and it was these that IBM was basically selling well into the 1990s. The problem was the distance between the models and the application structures that users wanted to build. The process models and linkages are the way that IBM has sought to bridge the gap.
IBM set about standardising across the board on Eclipse, a common technical framework of objects which can be used by all of its developers, whether working on Websphere, DB2,
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