FINOS
In December I wrote about the Symphony Software Foundation as it was launching the NYC Open Source Fintech Meetup.
Yesterday the foundation announced a new name: FINOS.
FINOS is about supporting open source software efforts across the financial services industry.
Financial services has often lagged other industries in adopting open source software related development practices, but that situation is changing quickly. Quantitative trading firms like Jane Street have built entire businesses based on open source. And perhaps there is no better example of the degree to which open source is impacting financial services (and other industries of course) than bitcoin, ethereum, and other crypto projects.
FINOS Executive Director, Gabriele Columbro, described the FINOS mission as follows:
In the industries where open source has succeeded, independent entities such as foundations and trade organizations have played a critical role in fostering success. They have facilitated cooperation among players (often hard to do between fierce rivals) and encouraged dialogues necessary to solving common problems. This is precisely the role FINOS is playing in financial services.
Many of FINOS’ members are large global finance and tech companies such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, JP Morgan, GitHub, Thomson Reuters, and Red Hat. The accelerating adoption of open source in fintech is important not just for major financial institutions but also for emerging startups and younger companies looking to service incumbents or compete against them (or both). Examples among FINOS members include OpenFin and NodeSource.
Because financial services has always had an oversized impact on tech here in NYC, this is likely a huge boost to the NYC open source ecosystem too.
If you’re working in fintech I encourage you to get engaged with some of FINOS’ programs, either by just evaluating and checking out some of the work, or by getting actively involved by contributing code to a working group. If you’d like to hear more about FINOS and its work, you may want to attend their FinTech in Open Source Event Series this evening at 6:30pm where Gabriele Columbro will be interviewed by Spencer Mindlin of the Aite Group.
Finally, fintech is no different than any other “tech” sector in that we need more women, people of color, and other traditionally underrepresented communities at the table. The transparency and contribution models of open source projects can be a great on-ramp for anyone interested in a particular technology or problem domain. Together with K-12 CS education for all, open source can increase access to careers and opportunities historically all but closed to large segments of our society.
Comments (Archived):
Interesting the mission and vision of FINOS. Will definitely check it out as I think we can collaborate with them to connect them with members in our FinTech Connector Community around the world looking for fintechnologists.Lastly, love your message about the inclusion of women and multicultural people in this space. This is a big part of our vision in FinTech Connector especially as an organization whose founders and advisors are from diverse backgrounds and gender.Let’s continue the narrative…ANGEL
How is this pronounced? Fin oh ess, as in finance operating system? Or does it rhyme with winos?Fin or fine ows?
If I had to write it phonetically I’d say: fin-ohs.
Hey @JimHirshfield:disqus! Aaron from FINOS here. We get this question a lot 😉 As the maintainer of our internal style guide, I can tell you authoritatively that FINOS is pronounced FIN-ōs — “FIN” as in “Fintech,” “O” as in “open.” (Thanks so much for the post, Fred!)
Thanks
whale or shark?
It’s the financial sector.. obviously sharks!”[Insert some clever cereal tagline about taking a big bite out of society/extracting value for managing finances]”
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Fino rhymes with Rhino and the “S” is silent, except on shabbat when you pronounce the “S”.
A major obstacle to open-source adoption in major corporations is governance (Security, risk management and accountability). This sounds like a great step and I hope the organization has that as one of their main objectives.
Absolutely! As the Symphony Software Foundation we ran headlong into these friction points over the last couple of years, and in response started an “Open Source Readiness” initiative that focused explicitly on addressing them.As FINOS we’re increasing our investment in that work, and in fact just yesterday the board approved reconstituting it as an open collaborative program*, so that any community members who would like to join us in working on this topic are able to do so, under the same community governance as our other open collaborative programs.- Peter (FINOS staff)* https://finosfoundation.atl…
Interesting. Our portfolio at westloopventures.com has 2 female founded cos (out of three) and two companies that have non white co-founders (out of three). We can use moreImportant to note open source doesn’t mean losing competitive advantage.Fin tech on the surface looks stable but underneath it’s a chaotic industry. Always has had a culture of innovation and change. It’s just going faster now
https://www.cato.org/public…Norwegian firms who did not find a legal way around the state’s imposition of a quota for female boards members lost 12% in value for every 10% they changed the gender structure of the board. Not because women are bad, but because there were so few capable women to promote.Its amazing to watch people warp reality.AVC’s new hire is clearly a dynamite human, despite having a CV headline that is almost a cliche – Stanford Mech Eng, Intel, Wall St.I hope she doesn’t feel lessened by the firm’s interest in her superifical diversity (gender, race).
Value is subjective. So is reality from an unique observer point of view.Women should only vote for women to change a world and game largely built and ruled by men. A kinder and nicer world would emerge, for sure.Their actual situation is “taxation without representation”.