MYTH BUSTING THE ROLE OF OPEN SOURCE IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

Nigel Abbott, Regional Director North EMEA, GitHub

 

There is no denying the financial services (FS) industry is under pressure to innovate. Not only have customer and consumer expectations for digital experiences surged in recent years, but the emergence of nimble and ambitious fintechs have disrupted the market. Yet, despite striving for innovation being table stakes across the industry, FS organisations inevitably face familiar hurdles that slow their progress, including concerns surrounding security, compliance, and the ability to act fast.

Open source is increasingly seen as a route to drive innovation and create new value. The FS sector’s utilisation of open source and the transformative role it can play is accelerating – on paper, at least. According to the recent Fintech Open Source Foundation’s (FINOS) 2021 State of Open Source in Financial Services survey, as many as 80 percent of FS leaders said that innovation, reduced time-to-market and total cost of ownership are factors for FS businesses to consume open source.

Nigel Abbott, Regional Director North EMEA -GitHub
Nigel Abbott, Regional Director North EMEA -GitHub

But the reality is these positive adoption figures don’t tell the whole story. The survey also revealed that 75 percent of FS technology leaders said their businesses are either not “open source first”, or that they did not know if they were. Tellingly, less than one in ten (eight per cent) said that their business has put in place policies to encourage open source contribution.

The statistics point towards disparity between uptake of open source and the ability to use it to its full potential. But why?

For me, it comes down to some common myths about the role of open source that need demystifying:

 

Myth #1: There are limits to the innovation that open source can deliver

This could not be further from the truth. All enterprises, including FS companies, rely on open source software to build the best software for their customers, improve infrastructure, and unlock the potential of their engineering teams. Nationwide, for example, has completely redesigned its DevOps processes to respond faster to market changes and keep pace with customer expectations to remain relevant. The impact is transformative when they actively embrace it and participate fully in the open source community, creating a win-win situation for end-users. 

 

Myth #2: Data can be shared without consent 

Quite the opposite. Open source does not require FS businesses to share all their secrets and give away their competitive advantage. Instead, taking an “innersource” approach allows financial institutions to take the skills of developers who are accustomed to using open source tools and brings these inside the company firewall, providing a secure internal platform for working collaboratively on projects.

 

Myth #3: Open source is not secure

The most common misconception is that higher security risks are associated with code being openly available to anyone who uses it. But the open concept is, in fact, one of the biggest security strengths of open source. This is because of the collaborative nature of how code is built. The open source community has a shared responsibility for developing and maintaining secure code, and there is a vast global pool of developers identifying and fixing security issues. Supported by the right tools and processes, open source makes it easier for developers to code securely throughout the entire software development lifecycle, reducing the amount of time and financial investment in delivering secure products. Research from Red Hat found that security is regarded as a top benefit for enterprises using open source.

 

Myth #4: The open source community lacks finance sector contributors

This is untrue. Financial enterprises of all shapes and sizes are prominent participants in the open-source community and lead by example, sharing meaningful code contributions. Challenger banks and institutions such as Goldman Sachs contribute to open source initiatives via FINOS. By opening their code and ideas, FS companies can share lessons and support the whole community – helping them deliver better services and more value to their customers. And crucially, they are advancing a community that they can systematically tap into and benefit from.

Open source is already delivering innovation in the FS sector. But the bottom line is that there is so much extra value it can bring. Unlocking the full potential of open source to effect change does not just require buying DevOps tools. Open source requires organisation-wide understanding and support, a culture of collaboration and a progressive DevOps and governance process to thrive. Only then can it deliver its true value and accelerate innovation.

 

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