Learn

Mobile Banking Account Dashboard Using Redis

Will Johnston
Author
Will Johnston, Developer Growth Manager at Redis
Prasan Kumar
Author
Prasan Kumar, Technical Solutions Developer at Redis
GITHUB CODE

Below is a command to the clone the source code for the application used in this tutorial

git clone --branch v1.2.0 https://github.com/redis-developer/mobile-banking-solutions

What is a mobile banking account dashboard?#

An account dashboard is a page in a mobile banking app that instantly renders account highlights to users. A customer can click on any of the accounts on the dashboard to see the real-time account details, such as latest transactions, mortgage amount they have left to pay, checking and savings, etc.

An account dashboard makes a customer's finances easily visible in one place. It reduces financial complexity for the customer and fosters customer loyalty.

The following diagram is an example data architecture for an account dashboard:

  1. 1.Banks store information in a number of separate databases that support individual banking products
  2. 2.Key customer account details (balances, recent transactions) across the banks product portfolio are prefetched into Redis Cloud using Redis Data Integration (RDI)
  3. 3.Redis Cloud powers customer's account dashboards, enabling mobile banking users to view balances and other high-priority information immediately upon login

Why you should use Redis for account dashboards in mobile banking#

  • Resilience: Redis Cloud provides resilience with 99.999% uptime and Active-Active Geo Distribution to prevent loss of critical user profile data
  • Scalability: Redis Cloud provides < 1ms performance at incredibly high scale to ensure apps perform under peak loads
  • JSON Support: Provides the ability to create and store account information as JSON documents with the < 1ms speed of Redis
  • Querying and Indexing: Redis Cloud can quickly identify and store data from multiple different databases and index data to make it readily searchable
NOTE

Redis Stack supports the JSON data type and allows you to index and querying JSON and more. So your Redis data is not limited to simple key-value stringified data.

Building an account dashboard with Redis#

NOTE

Below is a command to the clone the source code for the application used in this tutorial

git clone --branch v1.2.0 https://github.com/redis-developer/mobile-banking-solutions

Download the above source code and run following command to start the demo application

docker compose up -d

After docker up & running, open http://localhost:8080/ url in browser to view application

Data seeding#

This application leverages Redis core data structures, JSON, TimeSeries, Search and Query features. The data seeded is later used to show a searchable transaction overview with realtime updates as well as a personal finance management overview with realtime balance and biggest spenders updates.

On application startup in app/server.js, a cron is scheduled to create random bank transactions at regular intervals and seed those transactions in to Redis.

app/server.js
//cron job to trigger createBankTransaction() at regular intervals

cron.schedule('*/10 * * * * *', async () => {
  const userName = process.env.REDIS_USERNAME;

  createBankTransaction(userName);

  //...
});
  • The transaction generator creates a randomized banking debit or credit which will reflect on a (default) starting user balance of $100,000.00
  • The transaction data is saved as a JSON document within Redis.
  • To capture balance over time, the balanceAfter value is recorded in a TimeSeries with the key balance_ts for every transaction.
  • To track biggest spenders, an associated fromAccountName member within the sorted set bigspenders is incremented by the transaction amount. Note that this amount can be positive or negative.
app/transactions/transactionsGenerator.js
let balance = 100000.0;
const BALANCE_TS = 'balance_ts';
const SORTED_SET_KEY = 'bigspenders';

export const createBankTransaction = async () => {
  //to create random bank transaction
  let vendorsList = source.source; //app/transactions/transaction_sources.js
  const random = Math.floor(Math.random() * 9999999999);

  const vendor = vendorsList[random % vendorsList.length]; //random vendor from the list

  const amount = createTransactionAmount(vendor.fromAccountName, random);
  const transaction = {
    id: random * random,
    fromAccount: Math.floor((random / 2) * 3).toString(),
    fromAccountName: vendor.fromAccountName,
    toAccount: '1580783161',
    toAccountName: 'bob',
    amount: amount,
    description: vendor.description,
    transactionDate: new Date(),
    transactionType: vendor.type,
    balanceAfter: balance,
  };

  //redis json feature
  const bankTransaction = await bankTransactionRepository.save(transaction);
  console.log('Created bankTransaction!');
  // ...
};

const createTransactionAmount = (vendor, random) => {
  let amount = createAmount(); //random amount
  balance += amount;
  balance = parseFloat(balance.toFixed(2));

  //redis time series feature
  redis.ts.add(BALANCE_TS, '*', balance, { DUPLICATE_POLICY: 'first' });
  //redis sorted set as secondary index
  redis.zIncrBy(SORTED_SET_KEY, amount * -1, vendor);

  return amount;
};

Sample bankTransaction data view using RedisInsight

TIP

Download RedisInsight to view your Redis data or to play with raw Redis commands in the workbench.

Balance over time#

Dashboard widget

API endpoint

Endpoint

/transaction/balance

Code location

/routers/transaction-router.js

Parameters

none

Return value

[{x: timestamp, y: value}, ...]

The balance endpoint leverages Time Series, It returns the range of all values from the time series object balance_ts. The resulting range is converted to an array of objects with each object containing an x property containing the timestamp and a y property containing the associated value. This endpoint supplies the time series chart with coordinates to plot a visualization of the balance over time.

app/routers/transaction-router.js
const BALANCE_TS = 'balance_ts';

/* fetch transactions up to sometime ago */
transactionRouter.get('/balance', async (req, res) => {
  //time series range
  const balance = await redis.ts.range(
    BALANCE_TS,
    Date.now() - 1000 * 60 * 5, //from
    Date.now(), //to
  );

  let balancePayload = balance.map((entry) => {
    return {
      x: entry.timestamp,
      y: entry.value,
    };
  });

  res.send(balancePayload);
});

Biggest spenders#

Dashboard widget

API end point

Endpoint

/transaction//biggestspenders

Code Location

/routers/transaction-router.js

Parameters

none

Return value

{labels:[...], series:[...] }

The biggest spenders endpoint leverages sorted sets as a secondary index, It retrieves all members of the sorted set bigspenders that have scores greater than zero. The top five or fewer are returned to provide the UI pie chart with data. The labels array contains the names of the biggest spenders and the series array contains the numeric values associated with each member name.

app/routers/transaction-router.js
const SORTED_SET_KEY = 'bigspenders';

/* fetch top 5 biggest spenders */
transactionRouter.get('/biggestspenders', async (req, res) => {
  const range = await redis.zRangeByScoreWithScores(
    SORTED_SET_KEY,
    0,
    Infinity,
  );
  let series = [];
  let labels = [];

  range.slice(0, 5).forEach((spender) => {
    series.push(parseFloat(spender.score.toFixed(2)));
    labels.push(spender.value);
  });

  res.send({ series, labels });
});

Search existing transactions#

Dashboard widget

API end point

Endpoint

/transaction/search

Code Location

/routers/transaction-router.js

Query Parameters

term

Return value

array of results matching term

The search endpoint leverages Search and Query, It receives a term query parameter from the UI. A Redis om Node query for the fields descriptionfromAccountName, and accountType will trigger and return results.

app/routers/transaction-router.js
transactionRouter.get('/search', async (req, res) => {
  const term = req.query.term;

  let results;

  if (term.length >= 3) {
    results = await bankRepo
      .search()
      .where('description')
      .matches(term)
      .or('fromAccountName')
      .matches(term)
      .or('transactionType')
      .equals(term)
      .return.all({ pageSize: 1000 });
  }
  res.send(results);
});

Get recent transactions#

Dashboard widget

API end point

Endpoint

/transaction/transactions

Code Location

/routers/transaction-router.js

Parameters

none

Return value

array of results

Even the transactions endpoint leverages Search and Query. A Redis om Node query will trigger and return ten most recent transactions.

app/routers/transaction-router.js
/* return ten most recent transactions */
transactionRouter.get('/transactions', async (req, res) => {
  const transactions = await bankRepo
    .search()
    .sortBy('transactionDate', 'DESC')
    .return.all({ pageSize: 10 });

  res.send(transactions.slice(0, 10));
});

Ready to use Redis in account dashboard?#

Hopefully, this tutorial has helped you visualize how to use Redis for account dashboard, specifically in the context of mobile banking. For additional resources related to this topic, check out the links below:

Additional resources#