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Community meeting of May 15, 2026
Welcome to the Mentors and Mentees (new Contributors) under the program.
meeting notes
Key Outcomes
Five GSoC mentees introduced their summer projects covering front-end modernization, command processing migration, loan origination, BI connector POC, and integration test refactoring 1. Meeting format will use weekly all-hands on Monday evenings plus asynchronous daily stand-ups with 24-48 hour reporting to accommodate global time zones 23.
Project Introductions
Self-Service Front-End Layer (Edward Kang)
- Mentee: Edward Kang, MS Computer Science student at University of Colorado Boulder 4
- Primary Mentor: Aman Mittal 5
- Scope: Security-focused features including registration, authentication flows, attribute-based access control, identity verification (PAN/SSN/Aadhaar), and two-factor authentication 6
- Goal: Release-ready front-end bundled with Fineract distributions as demonstration of capabilities 7
Command Processing Infrastructure Migration (Nidhi)
- Mentee: Nidhi, 3rd year Computer Engineering student specializing in AI/ML 8
- Primary Mentor: Christian Fadoop (Toronto-based, not present) 9
- Scope: Migrate 5-7 modules from manual JSON extraction to typed POJOs with Jakarta validation annotations 10
- Target modules: Holidays, codes, account number format, office, funds, calendar, client collateral 10
- Coordination required: Alexander Mohl coordinating with parallel Mifos migration to avoid conflicts; loan/savings packages excluded to prevent interference with Pepper Soup efforts 911
Loan Origination System POC (Sujan)
- Mentee: Sujan, recent Baylor Institute of Technology graduate, currently at TCS 12
- Primary Mentor: James Dailey 13
- Architecture: Separate from core Fineract with workflow state machine (draft → submitted → under review → approved → disbursed), credit scoring interface, approval workflow orchestration 1415
- Tech approach: REST layer with filters, assumes loan decisions finalized, uses Swagger for testing initially 14
- Recommendation: Use OpenAPI specification to scaffold UI generation for future development 16
BI Connector and Demonstration (Aira Jana)
- Mentee: Aira Jana (absent from meeting) 5
- Primary Mentor: Paul (with James Dailey as committer, Aman Mittal as secondary) 7
- Architecture: Python extractor reading from PostgreSQL read replica, transformation layer, Apache Superset for visualization 17
- Future consideration: Kafka streaming or CDC (Change Data Capture) for production deployments; current approach suitable for POC timeline 18
- Compliance note: All dependencies must be Apache 2.0 compliant or compatible 19
Fineract-Fain Integration Test Migration (Krishna Nivara)
- Mentee: Krishna Nivara, 3rd year ECE student from NIT Silchar, contributor to Fineract, Mifos X, and Hyperledger Besu 20
- Primary Mentor: Attila (Hungary-based) 21
- Goal: Migrate integration tests from REST-assured to Fineract client SDK (Fain) for type-safe, maintainable tests 22
- Strategy: Align migration pattern with mentors, convert common helper layer first, then migrate domain by domain 22
- Pattern validation: Already tested in approved PRs, will replicate across similar directories 23
Decisions Made
- Meeting cadence: Weekly all-hands Monday evenings; daily stand-ups conducted by mentor-mentee pairs in their time zones with 24-48 hour written reports to maintain sync 23
- Branch strategy: New projects (loan origination, BI connector, self-service front-end) will use separate repositories; only command processing and integration test migrations directly touch develop branch 24
- Develop branch protection: Always release-ready; no half-done work merged; production environments depend on it 2526
- JIRA tracking: Create parent tickets for each GSoC project with subtasks owned by mentees; mentors assist with scoping 25
Technical Guidance
API Compatibility and Refactoring
- Backward compatibility requirement: Do not change OpenAPI descriptor without explicit approval; external systems rely on current contracts 27
- Permission enforcement: Some REST endpoints lack proper authorization (only authentication); must add CRUD permissions during migration 28
- CQRS implementation: Document management example shows importance of implementing command/query separation for audit trails 2728
- Validation approach: Use Jakarta validation annotations to replace manual 200+ line validation blocks 29
Code Quality Standards
- Commit frequently: Early and often commits expected 30
- Ask for help proactively: Get loud on chat and mailing lists when blocked; don't wait 30
- Testing requirements: All merges must pass existing tests and account for tests not yet written 26
Pending Confirmation
- Command processing module allocation: Final split between Fineract and Mifos teams to avoid duplicate work on same packages 911
- Loan origination workflow complexity: Number of approval steps (3-4 vs 5) and configurability for different organization sizes under discussion 3132
- BI Connector Kafka integration: Timeline may allow adding Kafka as configurable plugin option if time permits 33
- JDK version: Nidhi's proposal references JDK 17; Fineract now on JDK 21 34
Action Items
- Alexander Mohl & Christian Fadoop: Coordinate command processing module allocation between Fineract and Mifos GSoC projects, create two groups of 10 packages each with progressive difficulty 11
- All mentees: Create JIRA parent tickets and subtasks for project scope within first week 25
- Nidhi: Update proposal to reflect JDK 21 and clarify 5-7 module list excluding already-assigned work 34
- James Dailey: Schedule Monday evening weekly all-hands; coordinate with mentors on daily stand-up reporting format 335
- Edward Kang & Sujan: Accommodate 9pm IST start time for calls due to 8pm arrival home from work 1935
- Aman Mittal & Paul: Primary coverage for daily stand-up availability across time zones 35
Team Introductions
PMC Members & Mentors Present
- James Dailey: PMC member, Seattle-based, 12.5 hours behind India, primary mentor for loan origination 36
- Alexander Mohl: PMC member, 10+ years involvement, releases and facility management, GSoC mentor 37
- Adam Monsen: Nearly 50 years old (birthday yesterday), 20 years in Mifos/Fineract community, managing releases, working with Ed Cable, Seattle-based 38
- Aman Mittal: Joined October 2024, recently gained committer status, focused on back office UI and refactoring, India-based 39
- Adam Saghy: PMC member and contributor, introduces new features and helps newcomers 39
- Ed Cable: California-based (birthday today), 19 years with project, coordinates community and ecosystem connections 40
- Attila: Budapest-based, contributing 1.5 years, mentor working with Adam Saghy on bugs and features 41
- Tofunmi (Paul): Nigeria-based (5-8 hours ahead of US, 4.5 hours behind India), 3 years with Fineract deploying MFI solutions, started open source contributions last year 41
Accepted projects
| TITLE | Mentors | Mentee | Handle | Description | |
| BI connector and demonstration | Paul (Primary) ; James (standing in as committer); Aman (secondary) | Aira Jena | Fineract is largely used as a system of record for lending in many institutions globally. As such, most of the analysis is about portfolio health — how well are people paying back, and what are the key risks around repayments. This includes PAR, loan loss provisioning, write-offs, and trend lines for the same, along with basic stats like number of customers, the loan cycle they are on, aging of customer cycles, exceptions tracking, and correlation to any characteristic in the data. Currently Fineract does not have a analytics pipeline where vendors, users, institution can see these analytics. This project solves this problem. My plan is to build a complete ELT analytics platform. A python extractor will pull data from read replica of Fineract DB incrementally using a read only database user. It will push the data the PostgreSQL analytics warehouse. From there a dbt project will handle all the data transformation (delinquency calculations, PAR ratios, repayment behavior, portfolio health). I will show interactive dashboards with different type of charts, graphs, stats and analytics using Apache Superset. By the end of GSoC, the deliverables are: a working Python ELT extractor with both backfill and incremental modes, a fully tested 4-layer dbt warehouse model covering the Fineract lending domain, five production-oriented Superset dashboards (Portfolio Health, Delinquency and PAR, Repayment Behavior, Risk and Finance, Customer Lifecycle), Docker Compose setup so anyone can run the full stack locally, and complete documentation including a runbook and data dictionary. The whole stack is Apache 2.0 licensed, self-hostable, and designed so future contributors can add new analytics modules without changing what's already there. | ||
| Create a new Backend for Frontend and Frontend POC for Apache Fineract | Aman (Primary); James (secondary) | Edward Kang | My name is Edward. I'm a Master’s student at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US and I am passionate about Apache Fineract’s mission to improve the availability of financial services to people all over the world. Apache Fineract provides core banking APIs, but lacks a community-maintained layer for end-users. The former Self-Service API was removed, leaving vendors to build their own frontend from scratch. To support this new frontend, I am proposing a new Backend for Frontend (BFF) that enables improvements to end-user security, reliability, performance, and auditing. The focus of this project is to build a POC that is well-tested and documented so we can build a "release-ready" solution in the future. Deliverables include: 1) Standalone Spring Boot BFF application with its own user model and JWT-based authentication 2) Feign client integration with Fineract's core API via a dedicated service account 3) API Aggregations for User data summaries, account information, loan and savings views, and transaction capabilities 4) User registration flow with OTP and Identity Verification 5) User login flow with 2FA 6) Auditing for Basic Frontend Concerns 7) Open Banking Authentication Flow 8) A working frontend to demo these features Some stretch goals include but are not limited to: 1) MPIN for transaction authorization 2) Rate Limiting 3) HSM key storage | ||
| New Command Processing Infrastructure | Christian (Primary); James (standing in as committer); Paul (secondary) | Nidhi Bhawari | The current implementation of command processing in Fineract uses raw JSON strings. It then uses manual parsing through GSON. This causes runtime errors. Moreover, it makes the code more difficult to maintain. Fortunately, the community has already built a better solution in the fineract-command module. It has CommandWrapper<T> and CommandPipeline. The solution is type-safe. The current solution is more flexible. I will use this solution to refactor the current modules. I will refactor the following: Staff, Search (write side), Holidays, Working Days, Account Number Preferences, and Codes/CodeValues. I will use DTOs correctly instead of JsonCommand. All integration tests will remain intact. I will also add more to the current JMH benchmarks. I will explain the migration in detail and help in achieving the 20-module milestone making it easier for others to continue. | ||
| Foundational Loan Origination POC: External LOS Service and Survey for Apache Fineract | James (Primary) | Sujan Kumar | CR1TIC4L | Apache Fineract lacks a Loan Origination System — the workflow managing a loan from customer application to disbursement. Every institution using Fineract builds this externally, creating a fragmented ecosystem with no shared interface or reusable integrations. This project delivers a Proof-of-Concept LOS as a fully decoupled standalone Spring Boot service that integrates with Fineract exclusively via REST APIs, with zero changes to Fineract's core codebase. It begins with a structured survey of origination models across microfinance, traditional banking, and fintech platforms — producing a community blueprint before any implementation begins. Deliverables include: a loan origination model survey and gap analysis document, a standalone LOS service with state machine lifecycle management, multi-stage approval workflow, rule-based credit scoring engine with pluggable interface, a disbursement bridge to Fineract's POST /loans API, FIGMA user flows annotated to API contracts, and full documentation with Postman collection and architecture diagrams. | |
| Fineract-Client-Feign usage for Integration Tests | Atilla (primary) | Krishna Mewara | Currently, Apache Fineract's integration testing suite relies heavily on low-level RestAssured API calls, which results in verbose and fragile tests burdened by raw HTTP boilerplate. As the codebase continues to scale, maintaining this infrastructure significantly bottlenecks developer velocity and complicates code reviews. This project will modernize the testing suite by migrating these tests to the type-safe, higher-level fineract-client-feign SDK. By enforcing this pattern, the project will instantly reduce boilerplate, guarantee compile-time type safety, and standardize how future integration tests are authored. The core deliverables for this initiative include: * Migrating 75 core common and utility helpers to invoke the API using fineract-client. * Converting 275+ standalone integration tests across every domain to use the new SDK-backed helpers. * Completely removing the RestAssured dependency from the integration-tests build configuration. * Creating comprehensive developer documentation outlining the SDK-first approach and authentication patterns for future contributors. |
posted to dev list on may 1
https://lists.apache.org/thread/xdv093284vl1h2v0lhhlmycxk1c8rnjb
Hello Fineract Community,
On behalf of the GSoC program team, we are thrilled to announce the selected candidates for Google Summer of Code 2026!
We received many strong proposals this year, and after careful review, we are excited to welcome these excellent contributors to the Apache Fineract community for the summer.
Please join us in congratulating the following contributors:
New Command Processing Infrastructure
Contributor: Nidhi Bhawari
Fineract-Client-Feign usage for Integration Tests
Contributor: Krishna Mewara
Create a new Backend for Frontend and Frontend POC for Apache Fineract
Contributor: Edward Kang
Foundational Loan Origination POC: External LOS Service and Survey for Apache Fineract
Contributor: Sujan Kumar MV (CR1TIC4L)
BI connector and demonstration
Contributor: Aira Jena
A Message to All Other Candidates
To all the students and candidates who were not selected this year: thank you. We deeply appreciate the hard work, enthusiasm, and time you invested in exploring Fineract, engaging with the community, and writing your proposals.
The selection process is incredibly competitive, and we have a very limited number of slots. Having to turn away great proposals and passionate developers is always the hardest part of the GSoC program.
Please remember that GSoC is just one pathway into open source. You do not need to be a GSoC participant to be a valued contributor to Apache Fineract. We highly encourage you to stick around, keep contributing, and continue building your engineering skills with us. The community is always here to support you, and your PRs are always welcome!
Upcoming Community Meeting & Bonding
For our selected contributors, the Community Bonding period begins now. We look forward to seeing you all active on the mailing list, getting your local setups finalized, and preparing for a great summer of code.
To kick things off and get everyone acquainted, we are planning a Community Meeting on May 14/15th.
Please let us know your availability by filling out the poll below so we can find a time that works best for everyone: https://www.when2meet.com/?36474064-yxhqk
Regards,
Fineract GSOC program team (James, Tofunmi, Aman, Christian, Atilla)