Background

A leading financial institution was relying on a legacy application built in Java to perform critical trade compliance checks and regulatory reporting. The application handled complex compliance calculations on demand, ensuring trades met regulatory standards before execution and reporting. The legacy system was monolithic, had limited scalability, and posed challenges in maintenance and integration with modern monitoring tools.

Challenges

• Monolithic Architecture: The application was a tightly coupled Java monolith, making it difficult to scale or modify individual components without impacting the entire system.
• Performance Bottlenecks: On-demand compliance calculations were slow, leading to delays in trade processing.
• Limited Observability: The legacy system lacked comprehensive monitoring and logging capabilities, making it difficult to detect issues proactively.
• Compliance Demands: Increasingly stringent regulatory requirements required faster adaptability and more detailed reporting.
• User Experience: The frontend was outdated and did not provide an intuitive, responsive user interface for compliance officers.

Solution Approach

The bank embarked on a digital transformation initiative focusing on modernizing the legacy application by adopting microservices architecture and cloud technologies.

1. Microservices Refactoring:
   • The monolithic Java application was decomposed into smaller, independent microservices, each responsible for discrete trade compliance functions such as risk evaluation, sanction screening, and regulatory reporting.
   • This enabled independent development, deployment, and scaling of individual services.
2. Cloud Migration:
   • The microservices were deployed on AWS, leveraging services such as Amazon ECS/EKS for container orchestration, AWS RDS for database management, and AWS Lambda for event-driven processing.
   • Cloud scalability ensured on-demand compliance calculations could handle fluctuating trade volumes efficiently.
3. Frontend Modernization:
   • The user interface was rebuilt using Angular, delivering a dynamic, responsive experience for compliance officers.
   • Features included real-time status dashboards, detailed trade compliance reports, and intuitive workflows for managing exceptions.
4. Integrated Monitoring and Observability:
   • The system was integrated with ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) for centralized logging and powerful search capabilities.
   • Grafana dashboards were configured for real-time monitoring of key metrics such as service latency, throughput, error rates, and compliance check outcomes.
   • This observability enabled proactive issue detection and compliance audit readiness.
5. Regulatory Reporting Automation:
   • Regulatory reports were automated and generated on demand using microservices orchestrated with AWS Step Functions, ensuring accuracy and timely submissions.
   • Data pipelines ensured compliance data integrity and traceability.

Benefits Realized

• Improved Scalability: The microservices architecture allowed the system to scale components independently based on demand, reducing latency in compliance checks.
• Enhanced Agility: Faster deployment cycles enabled quick responses to changing regulatory requirements.
• Better Observability: ELK and Grafana integration provided real-time insights, reducing downtime and improving compliance auditability.
• User Experience: The Angular-based frontend increased productivity for compliance teams with intuitive workflows and real-time feedback.
• Cost Efficiency: Cloud migration optimized resource usage and reduced infrastructure overhead.

Conclusion

This transformation enabled the banking client to maintain robust trade compliance checks and regulatory reporting in a scalable, maintainable, and observable environment. By leveraging Java microservices, AWS cloud services, and modern frontend frameworks with integrated monitoring, the bank significantly enhanced operational resilience and compliance readiness in a complex regulatory landscape.