Mambu CTO Ben Goldin: “Corezoid is a cloud state machine, it’s not just another BPM”.

Ben Goldin, CTO, Mambu

Ben, how did you hear about Corezoid for the first time?

I came across Corezoid in 2018 for the first time, just surfing the Internet. Around the same time, I found out that one of Mambu’s clients in Georgia (TBC Space Bank) was using Corezoid.

Corezoid attracted my attention with its fundamental approach to developing the technology. I realized that Corezoid wasn’t just another BPM tool. In fact, Corezoid was based on fundamental principles of mathematics: finite automata theory and “state machine” concepts.

Also I liked that Corezoid was initially developed to be cloud-based. It was a platform natively created to work with APIs and not just a “generic” tool based on some vague model of business-processes design. So Corezoid had a great fit with what we were thinking about in Mambu at that moment.

We were strategizing about how to take Mambu to the next level. How to start offering clients not just APIs, but also tools to work with those APIs?

I remember the phrase Middleware Founder & CEO Alexander Vityaz said: “API is not a product. Process is a product.” This vision was very relevant to what we were discussing internally in Mambu.

What happened next, after you got initial understanding of Corezoid?

If a company attracts my attention, I try to understand who are the people standing behind the company. After the first call with Middleware team, I realized that Corezoid technology was exactly what Mambu needed.

In the course of a personal meeting with Middleware, all my assumptions proved to be correct. I liked that Middleware was driven by vision. It wasn’t just another money-chasing endeavour. Middleware team was developing core technologies, they were constantly innovating. The scale of those innovations stuck my mind.

Another thing that was striking is the level of readiness of Corezoid technology. It was fully production-ready. I liked the references that Corezoid had. The technology was already in use by huge enterprise companies like PrivatBank, Western Union, Metro Cash&Carry, and other big brands. All these factors made me confident that as a CTO, I could use Corezoid technology within Mambu’s ecosystem.

Also I liked that we managed to establish such a relationship with Middleware that allowed us to give feedback to the engineering team and influence the development of Corezoid. I’m not talking about “dragging the blanket”. I mean the ability to provide feedback that is truly taken into account by the company.

Tell us about the first months of working with Corezoid? Did the technology meet your expectations?

Our expectations were fully met. Mambu clients enjoyed working with Mambu Process Orchestrator (MPO) that is powered by Corezoid. Mambu even has clients who develop processes on MPO without any assistance from us.

What did Corezoid add to Mambu’s value proposition?

Mambu believes in the value of a “composable architecture”. We see the world as a number of APIs (internal, external, third party APIs). The resulting architecture of the bank is an ensemble of APIs,that are bonded together into banking processes and products.

Before we launched MPO, Mambu was all about APIs. Each individual bank needed to take a decision thinking: “Ok. Mambu has great APIs. How do we make those APIs play well with each other? How do we “glue” those APIs together?” This job required the bank to initiate a project, allocate resources, select the technology stack, begin programming, testing – well, to start dealing with tons of issues.

Mambu needed to negotiate from scratch all the stuff mentioned above with each new client. Our initial approach was: “We give you APIs – and you can do whatever you need”. Technically, this was true. Clients could work that way. Clients got APIs and could start building anything they wanted. However, from the viewpoint of sales strategy, it was hard to sell that way.

This led us to the situation where we wanted to find the technology that could enable clients to merge Mambu APIs into processes and make them play well with each other.

Additionally we’ve established an Ecosystem Tribe as part of our engineering organisation. This tribe is specifically focusing on powering a marketplace of fintech vendors with productised connectors and process templates, providing plug-and-play integration between third party services and Mambu, built and maintained within Mambu Process Orchestrator. Process templates offer ready-to-go business process templates, such as Client Onboarding or Loan Origination. The template implements all the relevant integration points with Mambu as well as other APIs needed as part of the process.

Corezoid has this unique offering that it lets people to easily work with APIs. There is no need to write java code, think of any special architecture, deployment rules, testing approaches. All these things are a part of the Corezoid solution. All you need is an understanding of the process you want to build. And then just go and build it.

About Mambu

Mambu is the leading SaaS banking engine powering modern digital financial services. It is the lean alternative to cumbersome core banking systems, a cloud-native solution driving open API-enabled architectures. Mambu helps clients to successfully start up new business ventures, transform existing operations, launch new products and expand into new markets. The company provides financial institutions of all sizes with the agility to rapidly design, launch, service and scale their banking and lending portfolio.

Launched in 2011, the technology serves over eleven million end customers. With more than five million active accounts in over 50 countries, ranging from fintechs to traditional banks, Mambu is helping financial institutions evolve and thrive in the digital age. For more information, please visit our website or connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook.

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