BATbern55 How can TWINT be agile in an inert ecosystem?

The Swiss banking Ecosystem works as a trustworthy and reliable basis for personal and business-related financial transactions. A fintech in this field is dealing with large and globally active players who can’t (and likely shouldn’t) adapt as fast and as agile as the fintech can, and must, to secure its position in the market. In this presentation I will elaborate in which ways TWINT strives for agility and innovation in an otherwise slow-moving and slowly innovating ecosystem.

1. How can TWINT be agile in an inert ecosystem? 7.3.2025 Sandro Montanari Head of Technology & Architecture

2. 2 Head of Technology & Architecture Inpher ( Startup ) Swisscom EPFL TWINT 5 th member, doing everything Director of Product Trainee, Developer, PO Cloud-based remote monitoring & Big Data Robotics & Automation About me Family Sport (Backcountry Ski, Triathlon) Making (3D printing, DIY, programming, electronics) Hobbies

3. 06/03/2025 3 Author Agenda Drivers and inhibitors of agility for TWINT How we live agility

4. Drivers & inhibitors of agility for TWINT

5. 3/6/25 5 The TWINT Ecosystem We work in a complex ecosystem Sandro Montanari Issuer Account Gateway Finance Processor Scheme Acquirer Merchant App/User

6. 3/6/25 6 The TWINT Ecosystem Payment is a change-averse market Sandro Montanari Issuer Account Gateway Finance Processor Scheme Acquirer Merchant App/User

7. 06/03/2025 Sandro Montanari 7 We’re agile…

8. 06/03/2025 8 Sandro Montanari Drivers and inhibitors for TWINT’s agility Complex and inert ecosystem Inhibitors Drivers

9. 06/03/2025 9 Author Regulated Industry

10. 06/03/2025 10 Author On that note… 4.2.25

11. 06/03/2025 11 Sandro Montanari Drivers and inhibitors for TWINT’s agility Complex and inert ecosystem Regulated Industry Inhibitors Drivers

12. 06/03/2025 12 Sandro Montanari TWINT’s beginnings Think back 10 years ago… TWINT needed to be the first to penetrate the Swiss market and establish the leader’s position in mobile payment

13. 06/03/2025 13 Sandro Montanari When technical dept gets out of hand TWINT without debt cleanup A new feature

14. 06/03/2025 14 Sandro Montanari Drivers and inhibitors for TWINT’s agility Complex and inert ecosystem Regulated Industry Technical debt Inhibitors Drivers

15. 06/03/2025 15 Sandro Montanari Mindset

16. 06/03/2025 16 Sandro Montanari Drivers and inhibitors for TWINT’s agility Complex and inert ecosystem Regulated Industry Technical debt Mindset Inhibitors Drivers

17. 06/03/2025 17 Smart People Sandro Montanari

18. 06/03/2025 18 Short Feedback Loop Roughly 5Mio monthly active users Sandro Montanari

19. 06/03/2025 19 Our Stack Sandro Montanari

20. 06/03/2025 20 Sandro Montanari Brand Recognition Source: Brand Asset Valuator study by Ogilvy, Ingo and Scholz & Friends Strongest brand in Switzerland

21. 06/03/2025 21 Sandro Montanari Drivers and inhibitors for TWINT’s agility Complex and inert ecosystem Regulated Industry Technical debt Mindset Inhibitors Smart People Short feedback loop Our Stack Brand recognition Drivers

22. How can TWINT build an agile system / work in an agile way, while living in an inert ecosystem?

23. 06/03/2025 Author 23 Agility Organizational Agility Development Agility Sweet Spot

24. 06/03/2025 24 Organization Value Stream Value Stream Value Stream Value Stream Chapter Technology & Architecture Sandro Guilds Application Architecture Database Architecture Platform & Cloud Architecture Head Lead Architect Lead PM Developer / Architect Sandro Montanari

25. 06/03/2025 25 Organizational Principles Sandro Montanari Balance Value Streams are self-organized Backlog, ceremonies, DoD, … End to end responsible for their components Scrum of architecture Central source of information Chapter ensures homogeneity and coordination over the entire system Balance control and freedom Documentation first & review at early stage From architecture to product High Autonomy Harmoni- zation

26. 06/03/2025 26 Sandro Montanari How we ensure agility Adapted Organization @TWINT

27. 06/03/2025 27 Architecture F**k Ups Sandro Montanari

28. 06/03/2025 28 Architecture F**k Ups Sandro Montanari µ-Service Interface not generated from contract We disrespected our own interface spec Integration partner got flooded with errors and some online shops were offline Line concept We used to have to deploy an entire TWINT system (“line”) to scale a single part Deployment dependencies, stickiness, cost & time, etc … Interface First Event- driven Synchronous dependencies Non-payment critical downstream system outage made payment crash In-transaction remote calls

29. 06/03/2025 29 Architecture Principles Sandro Montanari µ-Service Start with the contract Ensure versioning Ensure backward compatibility Event propagation Handle business logic once and isolate core functionality from “annex” Balance (eventual) consistency with nice-to-have Microservice Architecture Have a good understanding of your domain and boundaries CRUD use-cases and features Hexagonal: Ports and adapters Interface First Event- driven

30. 06/03/2025 30 Sandro Montanari How we ensure agility Adapted Organization Architecture Principles @TWINT

31. 06/03/2025 31 Platform Services Sandro Montanari DevOps Developers can consume platform services in a self-service manner Repos, Templates / Base Images, Pipeline, Vault, etc. Developer has autonomy and agility in building and deploying components Development, Testing, Deployment and Operational responsibility with the engineer Ensures confidence in a deployment Empowers the developer and gives end to end responsibility Self-Service Automation High degree of automation & coverage Reduces impact of human failure and increases a developer's agility/flexibility Helps in ensuring compliance (no human operator access on prod)

32. 06/03/2025 32 Sandro Montanari How we ensure agility Adapted Organization Architecture Principles Platform Services @TWINT

33. 06/03/2025 33 Time to market Sandro Montanari AB Testing Waterfall towards CI Currently 9 releases / year, releasing “the entire system” But in 5 components We can run experiments on production This helps us make informed and data-driven decisions about features or configuration Releases Fail Fast Feedback and improve (or kill) From Hackathon to Story Mapping, Iterations, Scope negotiations and MVP roll out -> to an evolving product

34. 06/03/2025 34 Sandro Montanari How we ensure agility Adapted Organization Architecture Principles Platform Services “Short” Time to market @TWINT

35. 06/03/2025 35 Author Conclusion

36. 06/03/2025 36 Questions? Sandro Montanari I’m Listening

37. 37 @ [email protected] Contact