Abstract:
This dissertation presents the work carried out to design and develop a mobileinternet-
based banking application for a commercial bank.//
In today's fast-paced world, people require connectivity while mobile or when
remotely located. Today, individuals expect their mobile devices to be more than just
a means of verbal communication. Checking bank accounts, settling bills, making
money transfers are some of the activities that individuals would require to perform
through their mobile devices. These requirements have brought about many different
technologies and solutions to individual needs.//
One such technology is the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which makes the
Internet available on mobile devices. Having the capability to provide the Internet
services on a mobile device has brought about many possibilities for businesses.//
The Commercial Bank of Ceylon is a pioneer bank in Sri Lanka which has decided to
identify the feasibility of providing their services on a WAP based environment. This
research project was carried out after identifying their requirements.//
The Preliminary Study phase of this project identified and evaluated the technologies
on which the application would be developed and deployed. Emulation tools, WML,
WML Scripts, Java Servlets, JDBC, ODBC, the Commercial Bank's requirements and
the WAP architecture were the main areas of study and evaluation during this phase.//
The application was designed based on the requirements of the bank. It consisted the
identification of the relevant entities, processes and data dictionary items. Based on
this design, the application was developed using a set of Java servlets. These servlets
generated the WML code to display information and accept user interaction on the
mobile device. A system test was undertaken once the application was developed on a
simulated environment. This simulated environment comprised of the software based
mobile device, the web server and the WAP gateway. The back end of the application
contained a Microsoft Access based environment replicating the same data structures
as found on the bank's DB/2 database.//
Finally, two deployment options of the developed solution were identified. The first
option was to base the WAP gateway with the mobile operator. The second wds where
the bank could use an in house WAP gateway. These two deployment options were
evaluated in terms of commercial as well as technical feasibility. The first option was
tested successfully on a real environment made available by the mobile operator,
Dialog GSM in Sri Lanka.//
This research project shows that WAP based wireless banking is viable and also it
makes a case for any bank or financial institution to adopt this technology in the
future.
