The purpose of this web page is to present a collection of analysis patterns related to the banking industry. Patterns, or object models, often repeat themselves in many projects, in one aspect or the other. So, it makes sense to document them, so that, whenever problems of similar kind are encountered, we can easier tackle them, armed with the knowledge of these patterns. Thus, having access to a collection of patterns related to the banking domain makes the development of banking applications more efficient and helps us addressing the problem described by Tom Groenfeldt in Why In-House Systems Fail [Groenfeldt97]: "Wall Street is littered with poorly designed in-house systems projects that have been tossed into the digital dust heap.". Analysis, mainly OO analysis, is gaining importance in the software development process. Software developers have realized that analysis is not just looking at the requirements at the surface. It involves creating a conceptual model of the problem at hand. This document of patterns will assist the analyst/developer not only in conceiving the model but also in communicating with the users.
The patterns described have been taken from the book Analysis Patterns:
Reusable Object Models by Martin
Fowler [Fowler97]. Some of the patterns have
evolved from Martin Fowler's experience in banking projects. Others were
primarily used in other domains but seem appropriate for modeling banking
problems as well. This web page is mainly for those developing software
applications and analyzing requirements in the banking domain. To make
the concepts easy to understand, we are trying to give examples from real-life
situations. We have documented the patterns in UML (Unified Modeling Language).
We assume that the reader knows UML to some extent. Those who are new to
UML can refer to the UML Resource
Center. The goal of this first version of the banking patterns web
page is to present our initial ideas, raise some questions and hopefully
get feedback
from experienced developers. In particular, we are interested in issues
such as potential applicability of the described patterns, concrete examples
of usage, extensions required to make a pattern more suitable, and finding
other reoccurring analysis problems.
Table
of Banking PatternsHow to work through the patterns:
Select
to get to the table of banking patterns. The patterns are organized by
chapters of Martin Fowler's book. From there, follow the links to a diagram
and description of the pattern you're interested in. You can delve into
the patterns in any order. The description gives a short overview of the
pattern and presents some general motivation for using it. Then, if further
interested, select 
where available for more information and real-world examples on how the
pattern is useful for banking applications. 
brings you back to the description.