Issue January 2017 | presented by www.jaxenter.com #55 The digital magazine for enterprise developers Featuring: Software vs and Finance How digital transformation is reshaping the future of nance ©istockphoto.com Interview with Payments are Jump on the Eric Horesnyi about to change Java 8 bandwagon “Banks understand Providing alternative Take advantage of the that technology is payment options – a increasing use no longer just a tool – thriving marketplace of Java in finance but a core skill“ Editorial Finance: What’s in it for developers? Does working in the finance sector pay off for software deve- The technological needs of the finance industry include as- lopers? The answer is “yes”. IT is a must have for most banks pects such as Continuous Delivery, Java, Big Data, machine these days – a massive change from its previous “optional” learning, low latency etc. By embracing these elements, the status. That being said, if banks are trying to win developers finance sector can change the status quo and co-exist with over, why shouldn't the latter learn a bit about this sector? what appears to be a fierce opponent: FinTech. How should Finance and software engineering are not two parallel lines; banks respond to FinTech? Acknowledge that disruption is finance needs software engineering’s help to grow and keep here to stay, find ways to partner and transform challenges pace with today's demands and competition. One popular into opportunities. This way, the digital future can belong opinion is that software engineers should become part of to both “traditional” banks and disruptors – provided that banks’ core business and help transform the entire concept software engineering takes center stage. of banking. However, in order for that to happen, software If you want to hear more about the facets of finance and engineers must not be treated as second-class citizens; deve- discuss openly about its challenges and opportunities, come lopment units have become a primary producer of business to JAX Finance, which takes place in London between 3–6 value, so why not admit that without them growth would be April 2017. futile? Gabriela Motroc, Editor Banks are innovating but not at the rate 4 The use of Java in finance 21 you want them to Jump on the Java 8 bandwagon This is why banks are reluctant to enter the roller coaster by Stephen Colebourne Index of FinTech The Leprechaun Trap 22 by Todor Gigilev The world is full of patterns – this is one of them “Banks understand that technology is no 6 by Ram Lakshmanan longer just a tool – but a core skill.” What can you do to minimize the risk? 26 Interview with Eric Horesnyi Major SaaS data security concerns “Technology not going with finance is like 9 by Jorge Sagastume saying macaroni doesn’t go with cheese.” Don’t fall into the “rewrite from scratch” trap 27 Interview with David M. Brear Choose software re-engineering Payments are about to change 15 by Sahil Patel Providing alternative payment options – a thriving marketplace Eclipse Two: “I want to use Electron as 29 by John Davies vehicle to rethink the IDE experience.” Interview with Doug Schaefer The traditional banking sector is 17 much more “intrusive” than Bitcoin “In a way, Apache Beam is the glue that 31 Interview with Paolo Tasca connects many big data systems together.” Interview with Davor Bonaci and Jean-Baptiste Onofré Looking beyond the blockchain hype 19 Blockchain will not eliminate the middleman by Henry Brade www.JAXenter.com | January 2017 2 Hot or Not TensorFlow 1.0 brings machine learning to mobile devices There’s a new TensorFlow 1.0 release candidate and it comes bearing full-blown fea- tures. In addition to making it easier for Java and Python users to put TensorFlow to good use, the added support for iOS and Android has now been optimized. Speaking of which, this release candidate comes with new person detection and tracking demo implementing “Scalable Object Detection using Deep Neural Networks” (with addi- tional YOLO object detector support), as well as new camera-based image stylization demo based on “A Learned Representation For Artistic Style”. JHipster 4.0 brings An- Kotlin 1.1 has gular 2 support reached beta JHipster 4.0 is out! This release supports Kotlin 1.1 is not ready yet but both AngularJS 1 and Angular 2.x and has it’s coming “fairly soon”. How successfully migrated to Yarn. JHipster is do we know that? Kotlin 1.1 has now the only available “full stack” gene- finally reached beta. According rator for Angular 2.x and the only gene- to the official announcement, rator that creates non-trivial Angular 2.x the biggest highlights of 1.1 are code, in particular using their JDL Studio. the following: corou tines on the Generation is now easier, faster, and safer JVM, JavaScript and Android, as pain points have been removed from as well as full support of compi- JHipster 4.0. lation to JavaScript. An agile Java standard may not be possible Simon Ritter, Deputy CTO at Azul Systems and alternate representative on the JCP EC wrote in a blog post after JCP executive committee’s first face-to-face meeting that some changes will have to be made to the processes the JCP uses, otherwise the idea of making an agile Java standard is unlikely to materialize. Ritter explained that even though the fact that individual JEPs will be developed in isolation from other JEPs will enable developers to “take advantage of features as soon as they are ready”, the following problem remains: how will this approach work in practice? Oracle says goodbye to MVC 1.0 It‘s not necessarily bad news since Java Champion Ivar Grimstad is the new MVC spec lead. However, change is change: Santiago Pericas-Geertsen and Manfred Riem, former MVC spec leads, announced in mid-January that they have initiated a Transfer Ballot as per JCP 2.10 and proposed to transfer the MVC 1.0 JSR from Oracle to Ivar Grimstad. Werner Keil expressed his happiness for seeing “another JSR run by an individual”. www.JAXenter.com | January 2017 3 Banking ©istockphoto.com/Nikada This is why banks are reluctant to enter the roller coaster of FinTech Banks are innovating but not at the rate you want them to How can one enable innovation in banking? The answer lies in convincing the end client that innovation is safe and banks are not taking any risks. Of course this is easy to say but not that easy to execute. by Todor Gigilev mainframes and they are reluctant to enter the roller coaster of FinTech we have been witnessing the last five years. Imagine you are in your late 80s, made millions in savings. Blockchain, NFC, Peer to peer lending are just a few of the Would you take bold steps and risk what you have already options traditional banking could have fully adopted. This secured or will you just take time to enjoy your days? Now would have had tremendous impact on the way we exchange imagine you are part of the board of a multinational bank transactions, do business and live our lives. However, I can- that has big market share and you are in charge of innova- not name a big bank that has jumped on the bandwagon and tion. Would you push your people to come up with the most delivered a fully fledged product in this area. Just the oppo- ground-breaking solutions or would you innovative just site – the stories I hear are, for example, about two of the top enough to keep your market share? This might give you an executives of BNP Paribas in Bulgaria leaving the company answer as to why many of the big names in banking still use to start their own Peer to peer lending platform called Klear. www.JAXenter.com | January 2017 4 Banking Why didn’t they initiate this project inside the organization? I think there are two factors causing this: “Innovation is always • Internal factor: Company culture in the traditional bank- ing linked with uncertainty, • External factor: The public image of banks is all about security, while innovation relates to risk. banks are always linked But before we delve into details, let’s first define what is in- with high security.” novation in the eyes of a bank executive and what we, the “disruptive innovation” fans, picture in our minds. What is innovation according to banks of this network and everyone would be able to add a node I have heard stories that only changing the background color and be part of this infrastructure. She will certainly prefer the of the corporate banking portal took six months. That should old-fashioned bank that is not powered by the mechanism be- be enough to set the tone of what you can expect when we hind the dodgy “bitcoin” currency she is hearing scary news talk about innovation in a large banking institution. So forget about on TV. about authorizations of transactions through face recognition or personal branch in your home via augmented reality. How to enable innovation in banking Last year, my company Dreamix developed a bespoke Java I think the answer lies in convincing the end client that inno- based software solution for a banking organization. It was vation is safe and banks are not taking any risks. Of course considered innovative in terms of internal banking processes this is easy to say but not that easy to execute. We have a good and how one can create new products (deposit or loans) with- example of consortium of banks coming up with a radical out the need of any IT support.