Discover Financial Services is democratizing its technology by allowing engineers and outside developers to share their knowledge in a newly launched platform. 

The platform, Discover Technology Experience, allows developers to share ideas and work on technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA). Its aim is to attract engineers to work for Discover, Angel Diaz, leader of technology academy experience and open source at Discover Financial Services, told Bank Automation News.

“The way we are becoming product- and platform-centric is through common processes in the technologies, and people are so important,” Diaz said. “Engineers want an ability to express themselves, You want to attract engineers, you better be doing that. You want to retain engineers, you better be doing that. And there’s no faster way to do that in the open.” 

As part of the platform launch, Discover joined the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) and the Linux Foundation, a neutral pair of non-profit technology consortiums that aim to build collaboration between engineers, to further develop and contribute to the open-source ecosystem, according to a company release. 

Launch for growth, technology development

Discover’s move to the open-source foundations is a major step in becoming an open-source leader, Gabriele Columbro, executive director of FINOS and general manager of Linux Foundation Europe, told BAN. 

“We discussed changes that Discover was making in how they were asking their developers and engineers to get involved with open-source projects, learn and then even speak on their participation in public forums,” he said. “This isn’t an easy step for financial services firms to achieve between compliance and regulation constraints.” 

The platform launch acknowledges the growth of open-source development within the technology space, Discover’s Diaz said. “All software today is built on open-source technology, and there’s been democratization.” 

Opening any piece of software shows large components of open-source development under the surface. The hope is that Discover Technology Experience will lead to an exchange of knowledge and increased development of the company’s tech, Diaz said. 

“We wanted to … be more deliberate about this and took a strategic view to go do that. We’‘ve got some automation and RPA folks sharing their knowledge,” he said.