Digital Transformation is Essential for the future of Banking

Nothing was broken at Bank Albilad. Services were named differently in different domains, the same capability existed more than once, and every new partner meant negotiating a new point-to-point contract. In September 2023 the bank’s Enterprise Architecture Office began a bank-wide adoption of the BIAN Service Landscape to change that.

This case study describes how Saudi Arabia’s leading Shariah-compliant bank turned change from invention into assembly, and what proved harder than expected along the way.

Three outcomes stand out. More than 100 canonical services and APIs now sit in one catalogue. The time from architecture intake to design sign-off is 20–40% shorter. And preparing audit evidence for SAMA takes 60–80% less time.

“By standardising on BIAN service domains and canonical APIs in ABACUS, we have converted fragmented, project-specific work into reusable building blocks – accelerating time-to-market, cutting integration defects, and embedding compliance by design.” – Bank Albilad, from its submission to the BIAN Transformation Awards 2025

When Standard Bank Group Technology adopted the BIAN Framework in 2022, the goal was an internal one: a common data model and reusable APIs for the bank’s own integration landscape. Three years on, the initiative has grown far beyond the bank. Standard Bank now acts as a regional catalyst for BIAN adoption across Africa – from hosting the BIAN Member Meetings in Cape Town to leading the extension of the framework into insurance.

This case study describes how one bank’s architecture decision became a continental movement, and what other institutions can learn from it.

Three outcomes stand out. The BIAN Africa Chapter, which grew out of two Member Meetings in Cape Town, now counts 185 members. The BIAN Insurance Product Working Group – five insurers, six banks and South Africa’s insurance data exchange, chaired by Standard Bank – is bringing insurance into the framework. And BIAN-aligned APIs run in production in five markets, carrying cross-border payments for the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System.

“We stopped treating BIAN as our architecture and started treating it as our neighbourhood.” – Paul van der Merwe, Enterprise Architecture & Practices Head, Standard Bank Group

The project involved the creation of the Digital Integration Hub (DIH), a consistent business service interface based on BIAN specifications and aligned to Citi’s core systems for branded cards, mortgage, and retail bank businesses.

The project was created from the desire to establish a seamless, fully digital experience that could scale up to meet the country’s huge
demands for loans.

Play Digital Consulting adopted BIAN, alongside Evolve, to give the banks a combination of methodology and standards to support the implementation of any IT decoupling process across the banking sector.

HSBC formed five internal working groups to add BIAN as an industry reference framework and design new ways of working, including the business architecture initiative, which referenced BIAN in creating a purposeful and common business capability model.