5 ms·

I used to walk around other countries bragging about German online banking, given that we have a standard that has been iterated upon (HBCI/FinTS) over decades

I used to walk around other countries bragging about German online banking, given that we have a standard that has been iterated upon (HBCI/FinTS) over decades and you can pretty use any online banking software with any bank. A few years have passed since then and most germans banks are still the same. Meanwhile you get instant wire transfers in a few countries. When I think Deutsche Bank and innovation, I think of my phone calls with Deutsche Bank about disappearing money and them telling me that I shouldn't be surprised if the online banking doesn't actually reflect my real balance and 3 day same country wire transfers. A friend of mine has a consulting company that claims that theyre trying to change their internal structures though. I think of shitty support and paper faxes because of "security". The latter might actually be a prevalent problem in german society though. I work in Gvt. Healthcare. They've been spending 1 year trying to define an API for activating the new healthcare smartcards. It has 3 API calls, it's not done yet, and it's SOAP only. And then the leadership has been trying to get government support to mandate by law the forced usage of their crappy APIs. Germany is a digital dinosaur, no matter how much these old tycoons come to the bay area with their newly appointed chief of innovations for a week they won't get it, because they never had to compete on anything to get it. User experience is a completely foreign concept to them.

Quarrelsome 9y ago
SOAP in 2017? Yikes. Design by committee?
- dmitriid 9y ago
  SOAP is bleeding edge in banks. Many still pull and push files to/from (S)FTP
  - hyperdunc 9y ago
    Yes, but surely it's possible to jump straight to REST or beyond.
    - dmitriid 9y ago
      If you're willing to invest a gazillion dollars: - re-implementing all the processes at the receiving bank - re-implementing all the processes at the sending bank
    - lucozade 9y ago
      Of course it's possible. I mean, arbitrarily picking whatever happens to be a popular comms protocol, with no regard to its functional validity, was how they got to SOAP in the first place. Probably the only thing stopping them will be the byzantine budgetary processes that quasi civil services have.
  - nurettin 9y ago
    I've done integrations with the SAP systems of a few companies. They all had problems with calling SOAP and preferred integrating through SFTP. Apparently SAP programmers have a problem using SOAP or any other sane endpoint.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
robert_foss 9y ago
Having just moved to Germany the obsession with physical paperwork for various reasons is somewhat astounding.
- freeflight 9y ago
  A lot of this has to with legal definitions from a pre-digital time. Fax is considered a "secure transmission", so it's hold actual weight in the German law system. Emails? Not so much. Especiallly when working in healthcare this can be an immense logistical issue, shuffling paper prescriptions around between 3-5 parties ain't no fun and leads to prescriptions being lost in the process and a lot of beurocratic overhead.
  - rjzzleep 9y ago
    It's a combination of both. Disclaimer IANAL I just tend to talk to them. Digital signatures by themselves only provide non repudiation of the sender non the receiver. When in court, you as a sender will have to prove that the receiver actually received the data. § 371 ZPO [1] When sending a Mail per Einschreiben, the receiver instead has to prove that he didnt in fact get the message. Why that also applies to FAX blows my mind though. AS4 and AS2 respectively solve this in a way, because the receipt is part of the protocol and successful transmission. From what I understand(I might be wrong) its traditionally used for EDI in supply chain systems [2]. Drummond certifies that your product supports the standard correctly some people make a lot of money and you're good to go(it's XML and SOAP though). Apparently the EU is looking at using it. Here's where the german bureaucracy ruins everything though. The law stated above mandates from what I understand(again IANAL) that you use DE-Mail for communication to flip the procedure stated above. DE-Mail requires the use of a trust center, a third party that receives the message and forwards it. The only other way to flip the evidence case is by using your own contract, which german lawyers avoid, because they might be liable in case something goes wrong. [1] https://dejure.org/gesetze/ZPO/371.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/ZPO/371.html [2] https://www.rssbus.com/mft/img/AS2-Diagram.png https://www.rssbus.com/mft/img/AS2-Diagram.png
    - Xylakant 9y ago
kuschku 9y ago
Actually, in November, SEPA ICS comes into force. All bank transfers have to happen in 10 seconds or less.
- kogepathic 9y ago
  I hadn't heard of this before! Here is more info: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight/update-implementation-sepa-instant-credit-transfer-scheme https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight...
eru 9y ago
And yet, dealing with retail banking in Britain makes me yearn nostalgically for the days of yore when I was banking in Germany. I liked DKB the best, but even Deutsche Bank was miles ahead of eg HSBC in terms of online banking. (A few challenger banks like Monzo are trying to give Britain decent retail banking. I wish them luck.)
pjmlp 9y ago
When I moved here I was quite surprised with the stone age ATMs compared with what we had in Portugal almost two decades ago, where all kinds of services were available (train tickets, concert tickets, charging mobile phones, internet payments, ...) and best of all, at no additional charge regardless of the bankcard origin.

Quarrelsome 9y ago

SOAP in 2017? Yikes. Design by committee?

dmitriid 9y ago
SOAP is bleeding edge in banks. Many still pull and push files to/from (S)FTP
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  Yes, but surely it's possible to jump straight to REST or beyond.
  - dmitriid 9y ago
    If you're willing to invest a gazillion dollars: - re-implementing all the processes at the receiving bank - re-implementing all the processes at the sending bank
  - lucozade 9y ago
    Of course it's possible. I mean, arbitrarily picking whatever happens to be a popular comms protocol, with no regard to its functional validity, was how they got to SOAP in the first place. Probably the only thing stopping them will be the byzantine budgetary processes that quasi civil services have.
- nurettin 9y ago
  I've done integrations with the SAP systems of a few companies. They all had problems with calling SOAP and preferred integrating through SFTP. Apparently SAP programmers have a problem using SOAP or any other sane endpoint.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

robert_foss 9y ago

Having just moved to Germany the obsession with physical paperwork for various reasons is somewhat astounding.

freeflight 9y ago
A lot of this has to with legal definitions from a pre-digital time. Fax is considered a "secure transmission", so it's hold actual weight in the German law system. Emails? Not so much. Especiallly when working in healthcare this can be an immense logistical issue, shuffling paper prescriptions around between 3-5 parties ain't no fun and leads to prescriptions being lost in the process and a lot of beurocratic overhead.
- rjzzleep 9y ago
  It's a combination of both. Disclaimer IANAL I just tend to talk to them. Digital signatures by themselves only provide non repudiation of the sender non the receiver. When in court, you as a sender will have to prove that the receiver actually received the data. § 371 ZPO [1] When sending a Mail per Einschreiben, the receiver instead has to prove that he didnt in fact get the message. Why that also applies to FAX blows my mind though. AS4 and AS2 respectively solve this in a way, because the receipt is part of the protocol and successful transmission. From what I understand(I might be wrong) its traditionally used for EDI in supply chain systems [2]. Drummond certifies that your product supports the standard correctly some people make a lot of money and you're good to go(it's XML and SOAP though). Apparently the EU is looking at using it. Here's where the german bureaucracy ruins everything though. The law stated above mandates from what I understand(again IANAL) that you use DE-Mail for communication to flip the procedure stated above. DE-Mail requires the use of a trust center, a third party that receives the message and forwards it. The only other way to flip the evidence case is by using your own contract, which german lawyers avoid, because they might be liable in case something goes wrong. [1] https://dejure.org/gesetze/ZPO/371.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/ZPO/371.html [2] https://www.rssbus.com/mft/img/AS2-Diagram.png https://www.rssbus.com/mft/img/AS2-Diagram.png
  - Xylakant 9y ago

kuschku 9y ago

Actually, in November, SEPA ICS comes into force. All bank transfers have to happen in 10 seconds or less.

kogepathic 9y ago
I hadn't heard of this before! Here is more info: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight/update-implementation-sepa-instant-credit-transfer-scheme https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight...

eru 9y ago

And yet, dealing with retail banking in Britain makes me yearn nostalgically for the days of yore when I was banking in Germany. I liked DKB the best, but even Deutsche Bank was miles ahead of eg HSBC in terms of online banking. (A few challenger banks like Monzo are trying to give Britain decent retail banking. I wish them luck.)

pjmlp 9y ago

When I moved here I was quite surprised with the stone age ATMs compared with what we had in Portugal almost two decades ago, where all kinds of services were available (train tickets, concert tickets, charging mobile phones, internet payments, ...) and best of all, at no additional charge regardless of the bankcard origin.