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> Almost all of this seems untrue (except maybe the last one). I’ve worked at a variety of banks from front to back office across securities and private wealth.

> Almost all of this seems untrue (except maybe the last one). I’ve worked at a variety of banks from front to back office across securities and private wealth. I’ve seen plenty of company-specific languages, plenty of C++, Java, perl, python but have literally never encountered a COBOL system. Two of Australia's four biggest banks – ANZ and Westpac – have historically run CSC Hogan. I don't know what they are doing as of today, but according to media reports ANZ was still using it in 2016 [0] and Westpac in 2019 [1]. Hogan is based on z/OS, CICS, COBOL. Not only is the vendor-supplied product code in COBOL, any customer ends up having to write lots of their own COBOL code to add customisations necessary for their environment. CSC – now DXC – has a replacement platform, Celiriti, which runs on a more mainstream tech stack (Java/Linux/etc), and I believe both were looking at migrating to that eventually. Australia's 6th largest bank, Suncorp, uses Hogan too, having in 2020 abandoned an attempt to replace it with Oracle Banking Platform. [3] [0] https://www.itnews.com.au/news/core-banking-overhaul-still-off-the-agenda-at-anz-bank-429979 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/core-banking-overhaul-still-o... [1] https://www.itnews.com.au/news/westpacs-100m-core-network-rebuild-takes-shape-519940 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/westpacs-100m-core-network-re... [2] https://www.itnews.com.au/news/suncorp-to-modernise-its-hogan-core-banking-system-574617 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/suncorp-to-modernise-its-hoga... [3] https://www.itnews.com.au/news/suncorps-oracle-core-finally-junked-leaves-90m-crater-547982 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/suncorps-oracle-core-finally-...

xiaodai 3y ago
[flagged]
worthless-trash 3y ago
They still are hiring for it, thats for sure.
mickael-kerjean 3y ago
Same here, in Australia I did a contract with QBE insurance, COBOL was what was running the show and I know of several people in banking where it's the same
RGBCube 3y ago
They did good by not switching to the Oracle Banking Platform, after all, it's Oracle.
- skissane 3y ago
  Like many Oracle products, they didn't write it from scratch, they acquired it – from Citibank. In the early 1990s, Citibank set up a subsidiary in Mumbai to maintain their banking software, and sell it to other banks. Citibank ended up selling that subsidiary to Oracle, although Oracle is only the majority shareholder, and a minority of the stock is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. When I worked at Oracle, I was involved on the periphery of it, in the middleware products that it used, but I never actually saw the product itself.
vincheezel 3y ago
>westpac (Not so) fun fact, Westpacs account password policy requires the following: 6 characters. Not minimum. 6 exactly. (!!!) Includes at least 1 number and one letter No special characters, spaces or repeating characters And it’s case insensitive! Very convenient indeed if your caps lock is broken or something
- nubinetwork 3y ago
  6 characters sounds like crypt(). Pretty common on old Unix. Edit: I stand corrected, that's 8 characters.
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  I guess someone from their management uses the "dragon" password, so such policy.

xiaodai 3y ago

[flagged]

worthless-trash 3y ago

They still are hiring for it, thats for sure.

mickael-kerjean 3y ago

Same here, in Australia I did a contract with QBE insurance, COBOL was what was running the show and I know of several people in banking where it's the same

RGBCube 3y ago

They did good by not switching to the Oracle Banking Platform, after all, it's Oracle.

skissane 3y ago
Like many Oracle products, they didn't write it from scratch, they acquired it – from Citibank. In the early 1990s, Citibank set up a subsidiary in Mumbai to maintain their banking software, and sell it to other banks. Citibank ended up selling that subsidiary to Oracle, although Oracle is only the majority shareholder, and a minority of the stock is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. When I worked at Oracle, I was involved on the periphery of it, in the middleware products that it used, but I never actually saw the product itself.

vincheezel 3y ago

>westpac (Not so) fun fact, Westpacs account password policy requires the following: 6 characters. Not minimum. 6 exactly. (!!!) Includes at least 1 number and one letter No special characters, spaces or repeating characters And it’s case insensitive! Very convenient indeed if your caps lock is broken or something

nubinetwork 3y ago
6 characters sounds like crypt(). Pretty common on old Unix. Edit: I stand corrected, that's 8 characters.
GoblinSlayer 3y ago
I guess someone from their management uses the "dragon" password, so such policy.