BearingNode CEO Addresses OpenLineage Community on Financial Services Adoption

We're pleased to share that our CEO, Daniel Rolles, recently presented to the OpenLineage Technical Steering Committee during their January 2025 community meeting. His presentation focused on a critical industry challenge: how open standards like OpenLineage can help financial institutions finally achieve sustainable regulatory compliance.

The Financial Services Compliance Challenge

Daniel's presentation highlighted a sobering reality facing the banking industry. Despite a decade of implementation efforts, the Bank of International Settlements' recent report shows that only 2 out of 31 major banks fully comply with BCBS239's 12 core principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting.

This compliance gap represents billions in potential regulatory costs and operational risks across the industry—a challenge that Daniel believes stems from fundamental limitations in traditional data governance approaches.

BearingNode's Expertise in Financial Services Data Governance

Drawing on his 25 years of experience, including 15 years specialising in financial services, Daniel shared insights from BearingNode's work with Chief Data Officers and risk teams across major institutions. His unique perspective comes from having helped write the original BCBS239 policies and procedures during the early implementation years.

During the presentation, Daniel introduced BearingNode's Data & Information Observability (D/I O11y) framework, which integrates traditional data governance with modern observability practices. The framework encompasses:

• 150 metrics across 72 capabilities

• Five core organisational capabilities (Value, Discover, Track, Comply, Govern)

• 600+ specific requirements aligned with regulatory frameworks like BCBS239

  
  

Community Response and Collaboration Opportunities

The OpenLineage Technical Steering Committee responded positively to Daniel's insights, with several members noting that banks are already using OpenLineage for BCBS239 compliance efforts. Julian Le Dem, OpenLineage Project Lead at DataDog, confirmed that features like column-level lineage were developed specifically to support banking regulatory requirements.

Daniel proposed the creation of a Financial Services Working Group within the OpenLineage community, focusing on three key areas:

1. Standardised risk data flow events for regulatory reporting

2. Unstructured data lineage for AI/LLM governance

3. Value-aligned consumption tracking for business intelligence

The community expressed strong interest in this initiative, with TSC members encouraging Daniel to lead the effort to establish formal collaboration mechanisms.

Technical Innovation Meets Regulatory Reality

A significant portion of the discussion focused on the practical challenges financial institutions face when implementing data lineage solutions. These include:

• Legacy systems dating back decades, including mainframe environments

• Multi-cloud, multi-jurisdictional data flows

• Custom code and frameworks built over time

• Complex vendor ecosystems that don't naturally integrate

The conversation highlighted how open standards provide a crucial solution by enabling comprehensive lineage tracking across heterogeneous technology environments without vendor lock-in risks.

Industry Leadership and Open Source Contribution

Daniel's participation in the OpenLineage community represents BearingNode's broader commitment to advancing industry standards for data governance and observability. As a TSC member for over six months, he's been advocating for regulatory use cases and contributing to the evolution of open lineage standards.

The presentation demonstrates our firm's thought leadership at the intersection of regulatory compliance and modern data engineering practices—areas where many financial institutions continue to struggle with effective implementation.

Looking Forward

The positive reception from the OpenLineage community opens new opportunities for collaboration between financial institutions, technology vendors, and open source projects. Daniel's proposal for a Financial Services Working Group could provide a formal mechanism for addressing industry-specific challenges whilst contributing to the broader open lineage ecosystem.

This initiative aligns with BearingNode's mission to simplify complex decision-making through better data and analytics practices, particularly in highly regulated industries where governance and compliance are paramount.

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Learn more about BearingNode's D/I O11y framework: Contact our team to discuss how observability-first governance can address your regulatory compliance challenges.

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About BearingNode

BearingNode is a specialist consultancy focused on data governance, analytics, and AI implementation for complex organisations. Founded by Daniel Rolles, we help Chief Data Officers and risk teams build sustainable, observable data systems that deliver both regulatory compliance and business value. Our Connected Operating Model integrates traditional governance frameworks with modern observability practices to create resilient data architectures.