Traditional monolithic banking apps struggle to keep pace with ever-changing customer demands. Composable Architecture and Micro Frontends offer a powerful solution. This approach breaks down banking interfaces into independent, bite-sized features (micro-apps). Each micro-app is built and updated independently by dedicated product squads, fostering agility and innovation. However, for the customer, these micro-apps seamlessly integrate into a single, cohesive banking experience. This translates to faster development cycles for new features, improved scalability to meet growing demands, and empowered product squads who can focus on delivering exceptional user experiences within their area of responsibility.
From mobile apps to online portals, customers today demand a smooth and unified experience across all channels. According to a report, global mobile banking users are predicted to cross 3.6 billion by 2024. In response, banks are modernizing their interfaces to meet this evolution. The traditional monolithic architectures struggle to keep pace with the growing demand, and this is where Composable Architecture emerges as a powerful solution.
This cutting-edge approach empowers banks to build flexible and scalable web applications that can adapt to changing customer needs. With Composable Architecture, banks can break their monolithic applications into independent "micro apps" that work together seamlessly on the front-end. Imagine banking portals where each feature like account details, money transfers, loan applications etc. are composable micro apps that product teams build and update independently. Yet for customers, it all flows together into one cohesive experience.
In this blog, we'll dive into core concepts of Composable Architecture and Micro Frontends. We'll then explore how Composable Architecture empowers product squads to work independently. We’ll also understand the process of building micro frontends using domain-driven design and module federation that enables product teams to rapidly release features while maintaining a cohesive user experience across the application.
What is Composable Architecture?
Composable Architecture is an innovative approach to building software systems. It breaks down complex applications into independent, interchangeable components. These components, like building blocks, can be developed, tested, and deployed independently. This modularity allows for greater flexibility and scalability compared to traditional monolithic architectures.
Think of it like – you have an assortment of smaller bricks, each with its own function. These bricks can be snapped together in various combinations to create new structures or modify existing ones. Similarly, Composable Architecture allows developers to assemble components to create new features or entire applications.
The concept of microservices, which are small, self-contained services in the backend world, shares some similarities with Composable Architecture. With Module Federation, Composable Architecture takes it to another level. It empowers independent product squads to build robust micro applications (mini-apps) that seamlessly integrate into a cohesive user experience. This translates to faster development cycles and the ability to cater to the specific needs of both retail and corporate banking clients.
Micro Frontends: Building Blocks of Modern Banking Interfaces
Micro frontends are a microservices-based approach to front-end development. They essentially break down the front-end application into smaller, independent components that can be developed, deployed, and managed independently. Each micro frontend represents a distinct user interface element, such as a login page, account summary section, or money transfer functionality. These micro frontends can then be cleverly composed together to deliver a unified and seamless user experience.
Benefits of Micro Frontends for Banks:
- Faster Development Cycles: Independent development and deployment of micro frontends streamline the development process. Product squads can focus on their assigned functionalities without being constrained by other parts of the application.
- Improved Scalability: As business needs evolve, banks can easily scale specific functionalities by scaling the corresponding micro frontend. This targeted approach avoids the need to scale the entire application, leading to better resource utilization.
- Seamless Management: With smaller, independent components, fixing bugs or implementing new features within a micro frontend becomes a more manageable task.
- Empowered Product Squads: Micro frontends foster a sense of ownership and accountability within product squads. They can focus on delivering exceptional user experiences within their area of responsibility.
Empowering Product Squads to Revolutionize Banking Systems
Composable Architecture brings the ability to decompose the front-end application into independent micro frontends empowers product squads in several ways:
- Independent Development and Deployment: Product squads can develop and deploy their assigned micro frontend functionalities without relying on other teams or waiting for the entire application to be ready. This autonomy fosters agility and innovation.
- Focus on User Experience: With a well-defined scope, each squad can concentrate on crafting an exceptional user experience within their micro frontend. This focus translates to a more intuitive and user-friendly banking experience overall.
- Faster Time-to-Market for New Features: The independent development and deployment cycles of micro frontends enable faster roll-out of new features and functionalities. Banks can respond to customer needs and market trends more quickly.
Example: Imagine a product squad dedicated solely to crafting a user-friendly login experience. With micro frontends, they can develop and deploy this login functionality as an independent unit. They can focus on optimizing the login process, integrating social login options, or implementing multi-factor authentication – all within their micro frontend. This isolation allows for rapid iteration and improvement of the login experience without impacting other parts of the banking portal.
By leveraging Composable Architecture with Micro Frontends, banks can achieve greater flexibility, agility, and scalability in their front-end development. Let’s get into the technical aspects of implementing composable architecture with micro frontend and how this approach can revolutionize the way banks design and deliver modern banking experiences.
Building Micro Frontends for Composable Architecture
Here are the key steps involved while adopting a high-level approach in building Micro Frontends using Composable Architecture:
Domain-Driven Design (DDD): DDD is a methodology that emphasizes understanding the core business domains of a software system. It provides a framework for building systems that align with these domains, making them easier to understand, maintain, and evolve.
When building micro frontends with DDD, developers first identify the core business functionalities the front-end system needs to support. These functionalities are then broken down into smaller, independent modules, each with a specific responsibility. For example, one module might handle customer login, while another displays account balances.
Modules communicate through APIs, enabling them to be easily composed into the final front-end system. This allows for easy adaptation to changing business needs by adding or removing modules as required.
Shared Design System: A shared design system is a collection of reusable design components, patterns, and guidelines that ensure consistency across all channels. By developing a shared design system, banks can ensure that all micro frontends adhere to the same visual and interaction standards, providing a seamless user experience.
Micro frontends can use different technology stacks however, it's recommended to maintain a standardized front-end stack for consistency, like microservices. Popular frameworks like Angular and React dominate the enterprise banking landscape, and module federation using Webpack 5 works well with both.
Module Federation: Module federation, enabled by Webpack 5, allows multiple independent codebases to work together as a single application. It achieves this by letting each codebase expose functionalities as "remote modules" that other codebases can consume.
In the context of building micro frontends with Angular or React, Module Federation allows each micro frontend to be developed and deployed independently, while still enabling communication and collaboration with other micro frontends within the application.
Imagine a banking application with separate micro frontends for account management, payments, and loan applications. With module federation, each micro frontend can be developed independently (using Angular or React) and then seamlessly integrated into the overall application using remote module loading.
This grants each micro frontend its own development team, release cycle, and deployment schedule, while still allowing them to collaborate effectively within the application. Module federation fosters true independence and autonomy for each micro frontend yet maintains a cohesive and integrated experience for the end user.
Monorepos for Organization: Monorepos are a popular approach for organizing micro frontends. They allow developers to manage multiple modules within a single repository. This offers several benefits, including simplified code sharing, version control, and improved collaboration between teams.
In a monorepo, each micro frontend is a separate module with its own build and deployment process. This enables different teams to work independently on their assigned micro frontends without conflicts with other teams' code. Additionally, each micro frontend can have its own CI/CD pipeline, allowing teams to release features at will and independently from each other. This level of autonomy significantly speeds up development and deployment as teams can move at their own pace and release changes as soon as they're ready.
Conclusion
Composable Architecture and Micro Frontends have emerged as powerful tools for modernizing portals and experiences in the banking industry. By leveraging micro frontends for composable architecture, banks can empower product squads to work independently and develop micro apps that can be composed together on the front-end to deliver a seamless customer banking experience.
Unlock the full potential of Composable Architecture for your bank with a wide range of our powerful integrations that can boost your customer experience to the next level. Contact us today and see how we can help you build a modern and future-proof banking platform.
