Cross enterprise collaboration in the banking industry using web services and BPEL

The recent changes in market conditions force banks to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness by focusing on core competencies. Formerly highly integrated value chains are disaggregated and value networks are formed. A major challenge in this restructuring process is the coupling of heterogeneous information systems being distributed over separate companies. Hence a framework is needed that enables a standard based integration, supporting organizational flexibility for integrating information systems. The main focus of this article is to analyse the concept of Web services and related standards as a framework for cross enterprise collaboration in the financial services industry. Using the scenario of a distributed credit process, the authors show that combining Web services with standards for business process orchestration such as BPEL is a major step towards the development of such a framework. However, related issues such as the establishment of industry specific XML-dialects and managing operational risks related to distributed processes still remain open.