Context
FinaMaze delivers white-label banking and investment platforms to financial institutions. For one of the largest banks in the region, our platform consumed the bank's core services over SOAP, services that only exist inside the bank's closed environment in Jeddah. I travelled on-site to make sure every integration actually worked against the real services.
Problem
A closed banking environment means no open internet, strict network segmentation, and tight security controls. The bank's SOAP services could not be reached, let alone fully tested, from outside. Every integration our platform depended on had to be verified on-site, against the real services, before the delivery could progress toward production.
What I did
- Tested and validated the platform's integrations with the bank's SOAP banking services: verified request/response flows against the real services and confirmed end-to-end features (onboarding, KYC, transfers) worked through the bank's core systems.
- Investigated and resolved integration issues on the spot, where the only way to reproduce them was inside the bank's environment.
- Worked alongside DevOps engineers, requesting new services and environment changes, and following monitoring during test runs (I was the integrations engineer, not the DevOps).
- Worked with business and QA teams to clarify requirements and verify features, helping move the delivery through SIT and UAT toward production readiness.
Result
The platform's integrations were validated against the bank's real SOAP services inside its closed environment, and the delivery progressed through SIT/UAT. That proved the integrations worked under real institutional constraints.
Lessons learned
Enterprise banking integration is as much about process, security posture, and cross-team communication as it is about code. When the services you depend on only exist inside the bank's walls, methodical on-site testing and clear documentation are what win trust.