Hi, my name's Leon Roe, Currency Trader and Trading Coach at Trading180.com and welcome to this week's supply and demand for its technical analysis. If you are new to watching my videos, a warm welcome to you and if you're returning, welcome back and don't forget to like, subscribe and share if you find the content of use. And I just want to say thank you as well to all those who have been encouraging and leaving comments and positive comments in my videos as well. Really thank you and appreciate your comments. And if any of you guys would like to join Trading180 and join a great community of traders, I have a 50% discount which is going to expire on the 12th of January 2020 at 1159 London time PM. So if you want to join and really get really in depth analysis on supply and demand, this is not just your normal technical pattern, there's loads that goes behind supply and demand from stop hunting to capture pain relief to zero sum game to psychology to daily supply and demand zones, everything is encompassed in this course. It's literally easily over, I would say 50 hours of content including the weekly group calls and mentoring sessions and videos that I put in daily for the group. So again, this will be expiring very, very soon. So if you want to take it up, if not, that's fine too. I'll definitely see you at some point and keep watching my YouTube videos. So we'll get off and start on the trading economics, fundamental and sentiment analysis and looking at the week ahead, actually, in fact, before we get into the week ahead, just look at the week just gone. And really what's happened is global stocks much higher as US Iran tensions ease. So on Monday, well last week Monday and over the last weekend, you know, the risk of rhetoric regarding, you know, war, potential war, US civilians potentially being killed, Iran retaliating, troops being deployed has literally done a total 180 and you know, risk is less off, I guess, not saying that it's pretty much over, but Donald Trump has really kind of de-escalated the situation. So the stock market and a risk more risk on environment will march higher and it's actually made I think that was made new highs. So the US stocks Wall Street traders near record highs brush off weekday jobs data. So we had some weak jobs data regarding the US non-farm payrolls. So US jobs slow more than expected in December. But apparently it wasn't as bad as what was expected. So the hiring, the pace of hiring remained more than enough to keep the longest economic expansion in history on track while Friday's report also showed the jobless rate holding near 50 year low of 3.5% and average hourly earnings rising 0.1 in the previous month. So it's somebody has quoted I think Quincy Crosby chief market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey said that this report is almost in line with consensus except the wage aspect. So if it's in line by the rumors are the facts. So even though the numbers came out as you know, quite negative, apparently the traders were looking at that as expected. So the headlines, you know, was, you know, December dampener, but overall I guess it was expected. Hence the reason why you probably didn't see, you know, that many will price really move in $1 for Friday. But let's go into this week. So busy week trade negotiations will be in the spotlight as Beijing sends a delegation to Washington for a free day visit to sign the so-called phase one deal with the US. So is there a trading opportunity with that? Absolutely. If you hear that the deal is not going to be on or talks break down, pretty much you're going to, you know, the chances are you probably want to look to sell the dollar. So but again, this isn't going to be something that will come out as a news event on something like Forex factory. It will be probably over the newswires. So it's best to probably keep an ear out for that. So because the expectation, the expectation is for them to sign a deal so if they don't sign a deal, then obviously risk off and I guess currencies like the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen will end up increasing in value as their safe haven currency. So meanwhile, key economic data to follow include the US inflation rate. That's going to be very important because that's important for the Federal Reserve monetary policy, whether they're going to be holding or cutting soon. Industrial output, retail, trade in Michigan, consumer sentiment, China, fourth quarter GDP. That's important for global economic growth. If China starts to slow down, it could be a global slowdown and trade balance and the UK monthly GDP, retail sales and inflation figures again, important for the UK. So let's get into the technicals and starting off as we always do on the US dollar index and dollar index. So from last week, pretty much we had prices rise from here, the dollar was really kind of shrugged off the war tensions and we did see dollar actually move high. I'm bullish dollar and I've been bullish dollar for a few years now. So this was a nice buying opportunity as far as looking for confluence. And then I was looking to buy the dollar against some other currencies, but looking at the dollar index, which is a measure of dollar strength against the main currencies like the euro, yen and the pound and even the Australian dollar. When you see something like this occur on there, that's when you want to go over to the dollar crosses and look for strength on the dollar into this week. We're pretty much into this range at the moment. So we've got the supply zone, demand zone. I think there will be due to probably some negative sentiment regarding jobs. You could see, obviously, prices start to fall and then that will obviously coincide with maybe some dollar weakness on any of the dollar crosses. But if you're looking to buy the dollar, then prices come down here and then you get some bullish price action in that demand zone right there. That's where we are looking to get long moving on to the dollar yen, dollar yen. So last week, again, I want it to be long here, but couldn't get long here simply because of risk off as the Japanese yen tends to strengthen the risk off environment, but the market shrugged off the risk off, the war sentiment. So you saw pretty much what happens. The yen has weakened and the dollar has strengthened. Now is there still an opportunity to get long, of course there is. And really the opportunity is from this area here, and this is what I would consider hidden demand, this outside, what is known as the outside capture pain candles, I call it, but an outside candle, outside day, whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. But this wick is what is known as hidden demand right here. So I'm interested in anywhere around the lows, the 108 round number to the 107-8, 107-7 number for any kind of long trades as long as risk is still on, that would be a nice, by the time we get down there anyway, if we do get down there, if risk is on, then that would be a nice buy. If risk starts to come off this week, this is going to be a very nice area to get short in. And there's a particular set up I'm looking for, if I was looking to get short on this and I've told traders in the group about this, and they know this, which is basically a bit of a stop hunt, this is a nice level, look for a stop hunt up top. And if talks break down between Donald Trump and the delegates from China, that's going to be a very nice area to look for some short trades within that supply zone as well, just above a nice little fresh area of supply up here. So very nice at the moment, you want to kind of maybe try to stay away from entering levels that have been touched several times. So this level and its price zone has been touched not only once, twice, you know, three times. Now I'm not really keen on that, but again, risk off, buy it again, risk on, you're looking for dollar strength moving on to the dollar Swiss dollar Swiss. What we have at the moment is bit of demand, I guess, here it's not necessarily typically strong demand at the moment in the way that I draw demand, but there is demand here. So plastic pretty much gone sideways. Let's see what happens. But if you do want to get involved long, then you're probably looking for a move really kind of back down to the lows of this kind of created demand zone around this 0.966 area or slightly lower, which would be the demand zone that was created from September 2018. If we can get some price action that comes down here and also if risk is on and the reason why risks should be on before you buy is because the Swiss franc is not, doesn't do well in a risk on environment or tends not to anyway. If not, again, if prices do kind of come down, et cetera, and that would be the definite nice area to buy the Swiss franc. If you're looking to buy the US dollar, I should say, if you're buying looking to buy the Swiss franc, you've got two options. If prices make their way up here, that's the first area to get short or if prices start to make new lows, new lower highs and lower lows, then you're looking for a pullback into those lower highs in order to get short.  So again, make sure that risk is off before looking to buy the Swiss franc over the US dollar. Moving on to the CAD and CAD nice bounce from here. And this demand zone, fresh demand, fresher demand anyway, been touched once. So that's OK right here. Prices really kind of made this steep move down. So there was a nice opportunity to get long and lower time frames, you know, like the one hour, two hour, et cetera, nice, you know, potential entries around here and prices did make their way higher. The CAD did have some decent news, matter of fact. So regarding employment, so that was actually quite decent. Here's going to be the next demand zone. So what you probably want to do if you're looking to buy the US dollar is wait for a pullback into that area there. If you're looking for a sell trade, either you're going to have to wait for price to do something like this. Before into this number, if we're getting short or again, like the dollar Swiss, you're looking for a move down, move up, move down, and then a pullback into a supply zone, a newly created supply zone. So those are your options. New Zealand dollar, US dollar and and we've got decent price coming down to a decent demand zone. If you want to be a buyer of the New Zealand dollar, here we are. So we get a bit of a bounce here. The US dollar is really the number one currency at the moment. And on our fundamental analysis spreadsheet, the New Zealand dollar is number three. So it's kind of buying into a bit of strength at the moment. So I think this is a decent area for price to potentially turn around, especially because, you know, we've got some negative sentiment towards the dollar. So nice buying opportunity there. We do have some supply in the way. Doesn't mean a price can't break through them, but just be aware of it. If you are looking to sell the New Zealand dollar and buy the US dollar, personally, I'd rather wait for price. If price can get up to this point up here, that would be the better area that I would look for some sort of buying opportunity, because if price is potentially in a range between that high and that low, this is obviously seen as an expensive area, right? This is an expensive area for the New Zealand dollar, because there's no more demand for the New Zealand dollar. So if prices have started to come down, this is a proven expensive area. So or potentially a bargain area for the US dollar. So if prices come back up here, that's the best area to look for potential shorts for the US dollar. That's the way the supply and demand works. So either buy now or deeper into this demand zone, or if you're looking to buy the US dollar up into this, it's a 0.673 number and beyond, and then look for any kind of short rates. Pound dollar, pound dollar, I'm looking to get short on this. Mark Carney, there was some news that kind of slipped under the radar or it may not have for you, but I noticed it. And it was Mark Carney pretty much said that they may look to cut rates if the British economy isn't doing well. And again, Brexit on the horizon pretty much apparently supposed to leave at the end of the month. More uncertainty, why would the British pound get stronger? That's the question you have to ask yourself. Nothing to say, and obviously this is a game of probabilities, but what's the likelihood of the British pound weakening then strengthening? I think it's more likely that British pounds should weaken, especially economically. So I'm going to be short. So looking for short trades, I've got to wait for prices to really kind of come up to an area where I think I want to be a shorter or a buyer of the US dollar at a nice exchange rate. So let's see what happens. If not, I mean, if you want to be a buyer of the British pound, things could turn around, obviously. And the pound could get some really good positive sentiment when it comes to the economy. Then that's a decent area of demand to look for some buying. But I'll be looking for short trades if prices can kind of pull back, which would be nice as it goes this week or into the next week or two. If the dollar's got some negative sentiment, but then the British pound and Mark Carney decides to potentially cut rates. That would be very nice for a short trade. Euro dollar and Euro dollar. So we've got some demand zones, so supply zones right here, right there to there. Supply, we've got supply here. Now, again, I want to be short on this currency pair and buying the dollar. So I'm waiting for prices to come up to here before looking for any kind of entries or here, even better yet, if you can get fresh, maybe a fresher area of supply up here, prices can get that high and see what happens. But if you do want to get long on the euro, I would say probably now is the time or potentially if you're looking for a really good area, I would say this fresh area of demand right here. If prices can get down to this one point one oh six one point one oh five half number before looking at any kind of long trades. Again, you have to really kind of understand why you're buying the euro. Sorry. From a fundamental perspective, technical patterns, you know, if you're buying at demand and selling a supply, I think you're really not at the you haven't really got that much of an edge other than just a technical and statistical pattern. Really looking at, you know, the fundamentals as to why you really want to be a buyer. Why is this? Why is the euro a bargain down here? That's that's the question you have to ask yourself, well, why is the dollar a bargain at these areas? And really, that's derived from fundamental analysis and looking at things like GDP, inflation and interest rates. Moving on to the euro yen, euro yen. So again, more risk on sentiment coming to the market. Prices didn't really push lower. Now this demand obviously demands on and looked looks actually quite nice and prices have kind of moved to the upside. If there is some risk of sentiment that comes into the market, I think this area around here is going to be a decent for a short. Even bet would be really nice just above this level here. Zoom out a little bit. So, yeah, put somewhere around here for any kind of shorts for long trades, probably look for maybe something a bit deeper. Actually, as it as it goes, I think this level this level is all right. And there's a reason for that. And it's because pretty much there's a lot of traders that have been caught offside here and they've been caught offside by the risk of sentiment. So they would assume that prices were going lower. So if they're caught in their positions, i.e. they don't use stop losses, then these guys have to do to exit. They have to buy to exit. If they got short, then they have to do the opposite to exit. So that should add to the supply and demand equation at this area here. So actually, in fact, I don't mind that area to look for. If I was looking for long trades, to be fair, though, I'm not really looking to buy the euro any time soon against this currency pair, not the euro at the moment, even though actually I'm long on the euro against the Swiss franc, but that's for insiders and as to the reason why we are long on the euro Swiss franc. But anyways, Aussie dollar, Aussie dollar. So we're at a nice demand zone, fresh demand as well. The Australian dollar has been doing actually quite well. So if you were going to buy the Australian dollar, I wouldn't necessarily buy against the US dollar, but if the US dollar is going to get weaker due to some, you know, some negative sentiment about regarding the economy as far as jobs, then I think the Australian dollar is the best currency to, you know, to kind of short it against or go long against. So I think at the moment now is a decent time for a long trade, probably maybe on the dailies, probably gone a little bit. I was saying to traders in the Discord group that, you know, as far as news trading, you probably think prices were down here. I think some traders have got long around here. But yeah, let's see what happens anyway. I think from a daily perspective, you might have to just say if you've got enough to the upside, enough risk of war to the upside, then take it if not, then then you might have to wait for a bit of a pullback before getting long like that, something like that. Anyway, short trades are going to be from really from here. So that would be the first area I'd look for trading opportunity to get short, the prices can get up there. That's obviously very either expensive for the Australian dollar or a bargain for the US dollar. And I would wager that's probably more of a bargain for the US dollar. So let's see what happens with this decent long trade right there. And finally, the Aussie yen, the Aussie yen did break through this demand zone as that was, I think that was Monday. Yeah, that would that would have been the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Yeah, so there was a bit of selling off. But then again, the markets just literally reacted from this demand zone and gone a lot higher from there. Again, risk on sentiment coming into the market or less risk off as I like to kind of put it. And we have this wide zone of demand because we really kind of made new highs. Yeah. So when you've got a really wide zone like this, you've got a very, very wide zone. What you want to do is you want to break it down. Yeah. And so one of the techniques and things I use is to understand where there should be more demand or more supply at certain zones or certain levels and try and get a bit more intricate. So you can see around this area here, we've got resistance, resistance, bit of support, bit of resistance right around here. So it makes sense that if prices come down here from a technical analysis perspective, where do you think, where do you think traders are going to be looking to potentially get involved in the long trade? There. Same thing around, you know, probably somewhere like this where you've got bit of support and resistance in that area there. You've got to put a little micro level right here. When I say micro level, I'm talking about if you was to zoom down into the lower timeframe, let's say, for example, three hour, you can see where you've got support, support, support. So within these areas, you can start to see where you would want to potentially get long. Also, this is the 74 half number as well around here. It's just below the round number there, etc. So this is how we kind of break down these wide zones. And also as well, if you want to get a bit more accuracy, you may want to look for that area there. That area actually looks all right for a, within this area of demand. So you can see it on the daily timeframe. Yeah, you can see it's a general area where you've got resistance, resistance, support, resistance. But if you actually zoom in as well, you can see that there is a nice level where you've got that top of that wick, bottom of that wick, bottom of that wick. Yeah, and that represents itself just above that zone there. So that's a very nice price area where price may come back to. Yeah, come back to here. And this is where not only are we in a daily demand zone, we're also looking at where other traders are looking to potentially buy as well within this area. And if anyone's getting short up here, then where are they taking profit potentially going to be somewhere around here problematic areas. So if they're shorting here, they have to buy to exit new traders are potentially getting in here. If they're getting in and they're taking new long trades, what are they doing buying as well. So all the buying from a technical analysis perspective is demand. So this net net potentially we have a great location within this wider area of demand. Yeah, as to where we should potentially look for long trades, if we want to be a buyer of the Aussie Australian dollar over the Japanese yen from a selling perspective, the yen, I do like this zone here really do. If risk comes back off, and prices are up there, that is a very nice short trade, nice, a nice strong supply there, you can see the way price kind of feather way. So if prices come up to here, I think this should be a decent supplies and to look for some short trades if risk becomes off. So that's it for this week. Again, thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. The 50% discount really runs out on the 12th of January, 11.59 p.m. London time. So take advantage if you want to take advantage. And guys, I will see you soon. Have a great trading week and take care.


Well hello friends and welcome back to my channel. Today we are going to be working on a plan with me. I am working in my Aaron Condren life planner in the hourly version. I have the hard bound cover this year with the gold coil which I love and we're working on my birthday week. It is my birthday on January 9th and it's actually the 13th right now. When I am filming this I always back plan now for certain reasons. So anyways I thought you guys would like a little plan with me and I am going to be doing a little theme today since I thought this would be kind of fun. I just posted not that long ago about the Christian designs the celebration collection 2019. If you all are interested in seeing a little more sneak peek into this feel free to link or not link. I'm going to link future Emily is going to link a video for you guys if you want to watch a little bit of an in-depth look into this but I am going to be using her sheet that is like the little birthday sheet here which I love these colors and I think this would be really fun. So I'm going to pull this out and use this because these are going to be kind of like my main color palettes. I also grabbed a few of these from Coffee Break Planner because like the colors are basically perfect with it and then since it is my birthday I've got some like a birthday themed washi. These are both from my shop. I'm not sure if I have these anymore but feel free to check out the shop if you are interested.  Oh my goodness I cannot handle the washi. There we go.  Here we go and this month is like all the birthdays so I have my birthday on the 9th. My brother's birthday is on the 15th and then Doyle's birthday is on the 19th. So it is like birthday central around here even though my brother's gone currently um we know we still text a lot so yeah cool look it's like a birthday thing yay. All right so since I have a flex schedule I just kind of like hang on to this and figure out my time. Oh I actually did work on Saturday too. I gotta remember that. Future I'm only remember that. I probably won't but whatever. Okay so on Monday I worked from 7.30 to 5 and I'm normally like not a huge fan of like a theme and a theme washi but you know what it's my birthday month or not my it is my birthday month it is my birthday week I might as well just go for it right. All right and then on Tuesday I worked 8 to 5. Wednesday I worked 8 to 5. I wasn't really feeling too hot on my birthday and then when or Thursday I was sick which really really sucked. I had another migraine I've been having a lot of migraines lately and I'm not really sure why but I don't know and then Friday my computer decided to just completely freeze on me when I had about an hours worth of work yet to do so I only worked till 4 that day but on Saturday I did work so actually let me put that in. I did work in the morning I think it was about 8. I worked for about an hour. I had to just I brought my work home with me so I could get it done but it's just one of those things you know so anyway um Thursday I usually would have just worked from home but I just like could not brain I couldn't function I was like this this ain't happening so yeah. All right so let me put in work things and actually I'm gonna forgo this because I feel like with the washi these two colors are better even though I'm still gonna use this sheet too so all right so I'm just gonna do like every other day with the different colors because you know the cuteness and all let's see here here we are all right and then on Tuesday we had a ladies lunch and we went and went to this um Chinese place it was actually quite good so I'm gonna see if I can find um some sort of something in here I think I just had did I have lo mein or maybe I had fried rice I cannot remember um anyway it was good that's all that we need to know right it was delish here I'm actually gonna use a fortune cookie because I got a fortune so actually you know what I didn't get a fortune I heard that's like super unlucky as well that's um I like took a fortune cookie home or not home but like back to the office because I was so full I was like I can't eat it and I opened it up and there was no fortune I'm like no so yeah which is kind of strange all right so I'm gonna put my little fortune cookie in here and ladies lunch we did that on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we went out for my birthday and we went to noodles and company and I love me some cheesy carbs so you know it all worked out oh and we had donuts too um hold on let's put a donut in here I mean I didn't bring donuts but somebody else did and I was like okay well that happened so yep here let's put a donut right here yep because you know I'm in my little food thing I got this at Hobby Lobby a while back all right where is pasta oh here we go here's pasta there we go and then we went to noodles which I like to call nudes because you know it's delicious okay so there is that um okay let's get stuff out of here maybe I should like put in a few things I actually had like a service at my house when I was like on my birthday so I'm gonna put that in as well so I actually rent a water softener and the Kulligan service actually comes I don't know it seems like a few times a year and they like do the replacement pellets and check the water softener like make sure everything's good to go and you know whatever so they came when I was gone um let's see I should probably put in my age I'm 38 y'all I am 38 kind of old but you know what it's it is it is what it is right and uh here I'll put a little planter Steve on here too because that's cute all right I'm gonna use some of these as well for work because you know cuteness and whatnot so these are so cute from coffee break planner love these little desks just kind of mixing it up with these cute colors all right a yellow one and then ooh the my last pink one well I gotta order more of these okay there we go all right I'm gonna use my weekend sticker put this right here so cute um I'm not gonna do you a party time because it's not I don't know maybe no hold on hold on it's party time that should be right here because noodles is always a party time and then Thursday unfortunately it was a sick day slash migraine day which was horrible I basically slept all day long like it was just a no bueno type of a situation no no fun it was no fun at all and then I've got these really cute little shades from uh once more with love this is like a little nap time one and this is an anti-adulting which is so true um so let's see we're gonna put in uh today is canceled go back to bed because that's basically what I did and then I slept the entire day like the entire day um so yeah that was uh kind of a lot but it was uh very much needed because I and I didn't do anything I mean I woke up at like 11 took the dog out on a walk and that was it that was like legit it so I'm gonna put this right here and I'm loving this new um like Chrissy and Designs paper that it's actually removable so if you do mess up it doesn't like harm your sticker paper so I don't know I'm loving it are you guys loving that too because I am I also have these like little headache ones so I'm gonna use this one as well so it's like a little headache guy and then I'll put in this dude too because it's like basically just nap that's like all I did oh goodness and then let's see Friday um oh this is like one of my favorite sticker sheets these are from let's see watercolor blooms and it says Friday is my favorite f-word which actually isn't true but we're gonna go with it y'all know what I mean I went to all the places and I got my life handled so I went to cub oldie and target because I just needed everything I felt like all the things after work and then not to be outdone I went and did the same thing again on Saturday I actually went back to target but I had to return something so like wasn't that big of a deal but had to run to the post office in the morning I had a bunch of things to finally ship out I had some Etsy orders and I had a giveaway prize that I felt horrible that I hadn't like found the time to actually go and take myself to the post office but you know what it was it was time to go plus I sent my brother a package um and all that good stuff as well it was good to get it done all right so I went to the post office in the morning got that handled all right went to my parents place and I dropped off um some hangers and bags and uh they don't live here during the winter months um but they have a they have a house here um okay and then what else did I do oh I ran the target as well so I just had to return something so it was one of those things where I thought about it on Friday and I was like oh I should just run to the house and get this thing but I'm like why don't I like I have in my front entryway I have this like little bin that I put things that need attention so usually it's things that like need to I either need to deal with or things that need to return or exchange or something like that or things that need to go to somebody I don't know why I just don't like put that in my car that would actually make a whole lot of sense but apparently I don't think that way so anyways I was out on Saturday morning I went and did it then it all worked out all right and then on Saturday I did more decluttering and uh that was good and then today is this day here so I did a bunch of filming today because which has been good all right this is my second plan with me of the day and then I did some minimalism game footage as well and that's all I've really done today I don't I don't know what else I'm gonna do I might do some editing and stuff but that's that's the plan but anyway that is it for my birthday week from Monday January 7th through Sunday January 13th I hope you guys enjoyed it if you did make sure to give the video a thumbs up feel free to subscribe if you would like all of the sources for the stickers that I can find are gonna be down below for you guys thank you so much for sticking around and I will see y'all in the next video bye guys well folks it's time to kick it old school


Amen. All right, so Judges chapter nine is the topic this morning. We're not this morning this evening We're going to get through not quite half of it this evening We're going to talk about the beginning half or not quite half of Judges chapter nine So where are we at here? So judges chapter nine starts after the death of Gideon So we talked about for the last three chapters the judge Gideon the judge Gideon freed the Israelites from the Midianites And much more than Midianites he defeated the army of the Midianites and all of their Conglomerate people from the east the Bible calls it. So Gideon Was a great judge and he freed the people and some great Victories that God granted through Gideon Gideon is now dead And of course if you look back at Judges chapter 8 and look at the verse Just the last verse of Judges chapter 8 look the last two verses and the Bible says and the children of Israel Remembered not the Lord their God who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side Neither showed they kindness to the house of Jerubal namely Gideon according to all the goodness Which he had showed on to Israel. So look as soon as Gideon was dead the verse break before that says you know Gideon died and then these things happened So basically Gideon defeats the Midianites frees the children of Israel and they have 40 years of peace But as soon as Gideon dies, they just turn away immediately. Okay, and we'll see how immediate it was In Judges chapter 9 right away. Let's just get right into it Israel turns away again and look at what the Bible says in Judges chapter 9 and verse number 1 and abimelech the son of Jerubal went to set Sheikham onto his mother's I'm going to change the way I pronounce it to match brother Ryan's pronunciation So I don't confuse anybody So we're going to call it Sheikham unto his mother's brethren and commune with him and with all the family of the house of his mother saying Mother's father saying speak I pray you in the ears of all the men of Sheikham whether it is better for you either that the sons of Jerubal which are three score and ten persons that 70 sons rain over you or that one rain over you remember also that I am your bone and your flesh So who is abimelech first of all go back to Judges chapter 8 and verse number 31 The Bible says look at verse number 30 and Gideon had three score and ten sons of his body Begotten free had many wives of course in verse number 30 It says that he had three score and ten a score is 20 So three times 20 plus 10 is 70 sons in Jerubal had 70 sons with his many wives The Bible says and then in verse 31 says and his concubine which is basically one of it's a lesser form of a wife A maid servant who is in the role of a wife and his concubine that was in Sheikham She also bear him a son whose name he called abimelech So this is the man. He's kind of he's he's not really from one of his wives He's he's from a a concubine and he lives in a different part. He's separated from the From the other 70 brothers. So that is who abimelech is. He's the son of this concubine Okay, and in Judges chapter 9 verses number 1 and number 2 he's basically trying to convince you know these people of Sheikham to let him be in charge or put him in charge of them He's saying look would you rather have 70 people rule over you or just me just you know He's basically pining for the job to be in charge. So sheikham is in Manasseh That's where Gideon is from on the west side of Jordan Of course Manasseh was on both sides of the Jordan if you remember it was a tribe that was cut in half One side was on the east one side was on the west but sheikham is in Manasseh It's a city on the west side of Jordan. So look at verse number three So this is who abimelech is and this is what he's doing. He's trying to gain power over you know his His father's people that he was ruling over or being a judge over in judges chapter 9 look at verse 3 and His mother's brethren spake of him in the ears of all the men of sheikham So he's trying to basically be you know a king over this city is what he's trying to do all these words and their hearts Incline to follow abimelech for they said he is our brother. They're like well, okay. He's from the same city as us He's basically he's giddy and son. He's from our town, you know, let's you know that he convinced them And they gave him three score and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Belbarath where where with abimelech hired vain and light persons which followed him So look they give him it's interesting that they give him the exact amount of money that is the same amount as You know giddy and sons are so basically what they did was they paid You know him money to have giddy and sons killed Okay, so this is this is basically blood money that they gave to him and he hires these vain and light persons To follow you basically hires a mercenary army to go and kill Gideons, I mean look vain and light persons means that these are not men of principle Okay, that they can be bought they can be paid for they're the kind of people where you could go up and pay the money and say Hey, I need to have you kill somebody for me and they would be like, okay. That's a vain and light person Okay, now look This is you know typical of insurrections in the Bible I mean we could go into this but basically, you know Absalom did something similar. He took you know, he he he found 50 men to run before him Okay, and you know Adonijah, you know another one of David's sons did the same thing He had 50 men to run before him to show his importance and to just look these these guys before their Insurrections before you take over before you have an insurrection you have to get rid of the opposition and you also need to Look the part. Okay, so that's why Absalom and Adonijah, you know Hired those if they hired them or got those 50 people to run in front of them so they could look the part and You know people would think that they're the king.  Okay. I mean talk about forgetting You know what Gideon has done for you? I mean these are basically men that will do what they're told for money. Okay, look at verse number five And he went on to his father's house at Ophrah and slew his brethren the sons of Jerubbabel Being three score and ten persons upon one stone So they basically take these 70 men with this mercenary army and they kill them They execute them all in the same place not withstanding yet Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbabel was left So they only killed 69 of them and one of them got away Okay, for he hid himself All right, and the men have set Shechem Shechem gathered together and all the house of Milo and went and went and made a Bimelech king by the plane of the pillar That was in Shechem so they make him king of this you know of of this town or of Shechem Right, so now I mean you can ask yourself. Is this the first king of Israel? I mean they made You know they made a Bimelech king here, but here's the thing So this is first of all this is the tribe of Manasseh, and it's a city inside Manasseh There's no indication that he was king over Israel at all and of course he was not chosen by God He just basically paid a bunch of people to kill some people and pretend that he's king Okay, so now he's not the first king of Israel But one thing that we can see so far is if you go back to judges chapter 8 and Look at verse number 22 You already see we already see in the book of judges just this innate desire of the people to have a king Okay, now that'll that that you know that's important as we move forward in the history of the Bible, but look at verse 22 of Chapter 8 judges chapter 8 the men of Israel said unto Gideon rule thou over us both thou and thy son and thy son son also For thou has delivered us from the hand of Midian so basically you have a situation where even when Gideon You know won the battle against the Midianites. They asked him to be king They're like hey rule over us and we know that they asked him to be king because they said hey rule over us and your son and his Son they're basically asking him and his family to be the dynasty to be that royalty that will rule over the nation of Israel but Gideon of course said no You know, but that just shows that there is just this innate desire that is that is coming out of the children of Israel for an earthly king, okay Gideon of course said no the Lord shall rule over you and that's why of course when they asked for an earthly king that God said You know, they didn't reject you Samuel, you know They rejected me because they rejected God's leadership to ask for an earthly king look at verse number seven of Judges chapter 9 Now this is Jotham and this is going to be the main focus of the sir the sermon this evening This is Jotham. He escapes. He's the son of Gideon and when they told it to Jotham He went and stood in the top of Mount Gerizim and lifted up his voice and cried and said to them Harken unto me ye men of Sheikham that God may harken unto you these trees now He gives a parable he gives a parable that is really what we're going to call the curse of Jotham Okay so he is giving this parable that is really a curse upon Abimelech and it starts in verse number eight the Bible says the trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them And they said unto the olive tree reigned thou over us, but the olive tree said to them should I leave my fatness? Wherewith by me they honor God and man and go to be promoted over the trees and the trees said unto the fig tree So basically the olive tree said I don't want the job He said I don't want the job things are going good for me You know I don't want the job and the tree said so they go to the fig tree come thou and reign over us But the fig tree said unto them should I forsake my sweetness in my good fruit and go to be promoted over the trees So again the fig tree says a similar thing then said the trees under the vine Come thou and reign over us and the vine said unto them should I leave my vine which cheereth God and man to Go be promoted over the trees So you know the the olive tree the fig tree and the vine are like we're good You know things are pretty good for us You know we don't need to be in charge over the trees You know we got our grapes and you know our figs and you know the fatness of the olives is like we're good No, thanks, right and then said all the trees unto the bramble verse 14 Come thou reign over us and the bramble said unto the trees if in truth You anoint me king over you then come and put your trust in my shadow And if not let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon So of course you have a quite a contrast here in verse number 15 where you have the bramble was a bramble as a weed Bramble is a is a thorny bush. That's worth nothing. Okay. It's not it's not a great tree So you have this contrast in verse 15 of this bramble ruling over what I mean the cedars of Lebanon So the the trees that are asking to be ruled over are the cedars of Lebanon now Go look the cedars of Lebanon in the Bible and those are the the greatest trees They were sought after they were the trees that were used to buy hyrum to build the temple of Solomon. I mean They're they're up on the top of the food chain as far as trees go in the Bible look at verse 16 now therefore If you have done truly and sincerely in that you have made a bimalek king And if you have dealt well with Jerubo in his house and you have done unto him according to to the deserving of his hands in In verse 17 we have a you know parentheses here This says for my father fought for you and adventured his life far and delivered you out of the hand of Midian And you have risen up against my father's house this day and have slain his sons three score in ten persons upon one stone And have made a bimalek the son of his maidservant servant king over the men of Sheikah because he is your brother And if you have dealt truly and sincerely with Jerubo in his house this day Then rejoice he in a bimalek and let him also rejoice in you So he said if you've done the right thing then enjoy your king and let him enjoy you and live in peace And he's saying this but look he knows that and they know that they haven't done the right thing and then in verse 20 he says but if not Let fire come out of a bimalek and devour the men of Sheikah and the house of Milo and let fire come out from the men of Sheikah And from the house of Milo and devour a bimalek. So Jotham Essentially Curses the men of Sheikah Against a bimalek and he curses a bimalek against the men of Sheikah Essentially saying to them you know what you deserve each other is What he's saying, okay? Now look at verse 21 That's as far as we're going to get on this evening and then I want to go back and I want to talk about the curse of Jotham look at verse 21 and Jotham ran away and fled it went to beer and dwelt there for fear of a bimalek his brother So look we're going to talk about you know What happens after the curse and how the curse comes true in the last half or the second half of this sermon But look the bottom line is I want to look at Jotham's curse this evening And I want to talk about how Jotham's curse can show us how we can recognize a good leader and a bad leader in our lives And what God and what God is telling us with Jotham's curse on the type of leaders that we should be Because everyone here in some way shape or form is or is going to be a leader in their life So look let's look back at Jotham's curse and kind of cut this thing up a little bit and see what he's actually Saying so look Jotham is talking about trees and he's talking about vines and he goes through Basically he goes through four different examples here. The first examples are good examples Okay, he asked the people first asked the olive tree to rule over them The olive answer is this says should I leave my fatness? Wherewith by they honor they honor God and man then he asks the fig tree He says, you know rule over us to the fig tree the trees ask the fig tree to rule over them And he says should I forsake my sweetness he says and then of course they asked the trees asked the vine And he says should I leave my wine with cheeryth God and man so look these are all good trees These are all trees that produce something good. That's the first thing now I could go into and I've heard a lot of sermons about you know Just comparing the different things about an olive tree symbolizes this and you know the vine symbolizes this and the fig You know tree symbolizes this and I'm not you know downplaying any of those But I don't want to miss basically the overall point of this curse or this parable this evening So what I want to talk to you about is basically what this parable is talking about is It's trying to get you to think and it's trying to get these people to think I mean really it's a curse But it should get us to think who we want leading us is what this curse this parable is talking about look This is who you want leading you is this olive tree and this fig tree and the vine That's the point of this parable, but most times as Jotham points out he will not want the job Is the interesting thing about it look the olive trees throughout history that have taken the job did not want it The good trees the good leaders they were put in roles They took those roles, but they didn't really want those roles. They did it out of sense of service Because you know they were already in a situation where things were good for them Why would they want to do that? Maybe they were already wealthy. Maybe it was something like that Maybe they had everything going for them Just like these three trees are saying is like look things are good for us. You know no thanks But look that is what made these trees good And that is an example of something that we can look for as far as a leader that is going to be a good Leader over us right look there's many examples of this in the Bible as well There's many examples of this of good men good men Good trees that didn't necessarily want the job Moses He's like I am not eloquent Moses said you know I can't even speak He's basically said to God God wants him to be a spokesperson and go free You know the the children of Israel from the Egyptians from Pharaoh. He's like I can't speak So he provides him Aaron but look he goes he goes out of service and out of you know reverence to God Jeremiah didn't want the job Jeremiah didn't want the job Jonah Jonah literally ran away Jonah tried to run away from God But then you look at what these and there's many more examples in the Bible But you look at what these men ended up doing they did great things out of service for the Lord There's many examples of this in early American history of You know olive trees, you know taking the job of leadership out of out of service, you know There's not that many today, you know, I can't give you that today everybody, you know Everybody wants the job today. So look look at go back to judges chapter 8 and verse number 22 Look here. Here's the thing Gideon was the olive tree Gideon was the olive tree here. Look at judges chapter 8 and verse number look at 20 verse 23 of judges 8 They asked him to be king.  I will not rule over you neither show my son rule over you the Lord shall rule over you So Gideon basically just said you know God's gonna be you know Gideon didn't want the job And didn't say you know he didn't want the job because he you know he wanted to be wealthy But he just didn't want the job. It was God's job and he knew that Okay, so he didn't want the job, but then you go to judges chapter 9 and verse number 2 and look what you see You see in verse number 2 he says speak I pray you in the ears of all the men of Sheikham Whether it is better for you either that the sons of Jerubbabel which are three score and ten persons reign over you or that one reign Over you remember also that I am your bone and flesh. So here you have this guy It's kind of the opposite of the olive tree, which is a bimalek. He's out. He's out wanting the job He's out scheming to get the job to be king that Gideon didn't want that Gideon Refused because the Lord was in charge. So look the olive tree the fig tree the vine. They were good They were good trees. They produced good fruit. They didn't want the job. They're like, you know, why would we want that job? But then you have this other tree this other Plant if you want to call it the bramble and the bramble is the weed It's the thorny brush and it wants the job And it's out pining for the job. Now. Look, this is who you don't want in charge Is this guy? You don't want the bramble in charge. Look, this is the guy who wants the role It's a promotion for him I mean look, he's never really gotten anywhere. He's a weed He's never really gotten anywhere. He's never really done anything He's never really had anyone that wanted to follow him yet. He just wants the job so badly. He just can't wait to get it He's pining for the job. He wants to just rule over the cedars of Lebanon Oh, if I could only get that job to rule over those cedars of Lebanon. We're look Typically people would just cut him down as a nuisance People are probably been cutting him down his whole life as a nuisance, but he just wants to be in charge He just wants to be in charge of people. This is the guy that wants power for the sake of Being in power Why turn to mark chapter 9? Why why would someone want power for the sake of being in power? Look, this is the guy look everybody look everybody wants to be the boss, right? Everybody wants to be the boss. Why so they can have things their way Everybody wants to be the boss. So everyone is to do what I say That's the wrong kind of boss. I'm telling you right now and that's what this parable is teaching us Look at mark chapter 9 in verse number 35 Why why is that because if you want to be the boss just so you can be the boss just so you can get your way It doesn't work. Why because the Bible it's it's outside the model. It's not the model of leadership Look at mark 935 and he sat down and he called the 12 and say a thunder then if any man desired to be first The same shall be last of all and Servant of all so look that is the opposite of Bramble leadership philosophy right there Look at judges chapter 9 and verse 15 Look at judges chapter 9 and verse number 15. So this guy is this Bramble You know, he wants the job. He's pining for the job He wants to be in charge for the sake of being in charge to get his way to just you know Have you know the preeminence over people the look at judges 915 and the Bramble said under the trees This is the opposite of mark 935 and the Bramble said under the trees if in truth He annoyed me king over you then come and put your trust in my shadow and if not Let fire come out of the Bramble and devour the cedars 11.  It's not gonna work. It's outside the biblical model It's anti-bible in so many ways Look at turn to 3rd John chapter 1 3rd John verse number 9 3rd John verse number 9 The problem is is that the Bible teaches that leadership, you know If you want to be in charge for the sake of being in charge You probably shouldn't read much in the Bible about what it says about leadership because it says leadership is servitude It says leadership is you know putting others in front of yourself. It's not about the preeminence at all Is what the Bible says look at 3rd John verse number 9 I wrote under the church, but diatrophies who love to have the preeminence among them receive us not So look the preeminence. What does that mean? It means you have basically you have a superiority complex You think in your mind that I mean look this is a this is a bramble right here somebody that thinks in their mind That they're they're superior to everybody, but for some reason no one's ever put them in charge So they're always pining for that job to be in charge put me in charge I should be in charge. They're the ones trying to climb the ladder, you know at work They're just kicking people out of the way to try to get up that ladder no matter what Right, but look here's the thing. Let's do here's the thing this applies This applies to ordained leadership as well. You say are you talking about pastors? No, I'm talking about ordained leadership I'm talking about leadership that you know, you will find yourself in According to the Bible in your life. So let's do let's do a thought experiment What's a thought experiment a thought experiment is something that I can just give you a scenario and we could all think through This scenario together and what thought experience is the great thing about them You can do thought experience Experiments you don't have to build anything you don't have to do anything You can just think through something and see if it comes to a logically good conclusion or not and then decide if you Want to build something so first do a thought experiment. So let's do that Let's talk about you know parents. I mean, that's an ordained leadership role. Let's talk about husbands Fathers that's an ordained leadership role. You're like, I don't really want to be a leader I don't need to be a leader. Well, guess what you get married and have kids.   You're leader over your children. That's an ordained leadership role So what kind of leader do you want to be? So let's talk about if you're the kind of person that that wants to lead like the bramble in your ordained Leadership role. You're like, yes, I'm a parent now. I mean these kids have to do what I say. I mean, that's true Okay, but look you want the power?  You're now a father.  You now have that preeminence. You have that superiority You have that leadership role. Luckily, no one at work has ever put you in charge of anything Because they they've avoided this they're like this guy's a bramble They've avoided this in you and people in the world have recognized this and avoided your leadership But now you're in charge of a family and you have that ordained leadership role So you rule over people in the shadows you threaten with fire That's the bramble.  What kind of people are you training your children to be are you training men that will cower in the shadows? That's what are you training a bunch of submissive beta males with no ability to lead anything Is that what you're training? I? Told I'm gonna I'm gonna out Garrett on something here. I asked his his permission to tell this story, but it's interesting at a story The other the other day like two days ago at the dinner table We were talking about something at the dinner table, and I can't remember it was like a political work type situation And he was telling me about this work situation, and it had some political people Ramifications to it, and we were kind of going back and forth on this issue, and he had a different opinion than I did and And I said and I just I said to him I said well, you know here's what I think and Just just think about that he's like yeah, but I think this and that you know I might do this and whatever but look when he when we got up from the table You know what I told him I said you know what I'm glad that you're thinking and having your own opinions on things But I'm not talking about Bible doctrine I'm not talking about major things, but like we didn't actually see eye-to-eye on this exact situation And he'll eventually realize that I was right, and I'm just kidding But but the point is it's nice to see that he's got a couple different thoughts on things that I might have a chance of raising an independent man a Chance it shows that you could be raising an independent person Because guess what?  We're in the thought experiment now think about it. You ever want grandkids Your sons will lead families Your daughters will lead children and Your children will need to step out of the shadows at some point That I mean think about it. I mean think about Look, it's not about crushing people into the shadows and threatening with fire If you lead as a book if you turn to Ephesians chapter 6 if you lead We're still in the thought experiment here if you lead as a bramble One of two things will happen Guaranteed if you lead your family if you're in an ordained leadership role Ladies listen up to if you lead as a bramble one of two things will happen Ephesians chapter 6 look at verse number 4 The first thing is this here's the first thing that could happen. There's only there's only two things that will happen here It's one of two things the first one is this the first option is that you will provoke your children to wrath The Bible says in Ephesians 6 4 and ye fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but look at this But this is the opposite of the bramble here I mean you think it's a coincidence that this stuff just kind of fits together perfectly throughout the entire Bible Look what it says it says provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Look now here's the thing you could provoke your children to wrath if you lead like the bramble But I think I think that that's probably the best option that could happen When you think about these two options that could possibly happen if you lead you by shoving people into the shadows and threatening with fire I Think the best thing that could happen is that you know you provoke them to wrath because the other choice is this You will raise a submissive child that is only comfortable in the shadows Who that's serious? You ever met one of these people? I meet these people all the time I mean you ever heard of the kid that will never leave home You ever heard of the kid that can never handle anything you ever heard of the kid who who can't hold the job You ever heard of the kid look look folks. You have to get this right with your kids You have to get this right with your kids because once they're adults. It's very hard to fix You have to get this right You can't lead like a bramble and end up with children that can't handle anything. I mean that You'll end it.  I don't know if there's I Mean with God anything's possible, but it's it's a hard thing to fix So look Just in conclusion. Let me tell you something about the world.  Look. I mean this world is a tough place.   You know that that proper secession That proper secession that we talk about so much, you know that that that adherence to God's word from generation to generation What are we talking about in judges? Are you getting sick of of in judges chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 children of Israel again Did evil in the side of the work the children of Israel again? again again Again Gideon What me by all intents and purposes one of the best judges? One of the greatest judges are three whole chapters in the Bible about him He destroys this huge army God takes him and just wins this huge victory for you know through Gideon I mean they wanted him to be king.  It's only it's one way to do it There's lots of ways how to do it, but this is one way look this is It's it's something like this this proper secession How do I how do I live my life as a Bible-believing Christian and serve the Lord in my life? Look, it's hard enough, right? How many people are in here? There are a thousand people in here How do I live my life as a Christian and live my life according to how God wants me to live my life? and and go soul-winning and serve the Lord and do what I'm supposed to do and come to church and Just serve and in all the ways and just just have a pleasing life towards the Lord. How do I do that? That's tough, but hey, oh I figured it out now. How do I pass that on to my kids? Everybody fails at that Why? Because it's hard Because it's a rough world and it's full of brambles out there I mean the the majority of the problem is the world is The world coming after what you're trying to do is the world You know with the false gods and the false everything and the wickedness that's out there just coming after you trying to pull I mean look you got to raise strong kids You got to raise strong kids you can't have these kids are just like this all the time you could create that By being that person by being that bramble you could literally create kids that are destroyed by the same type of Person that you are Christian Possible That I mean that's the lesson of this curse Look this this question on how to pass this down on how to take hey, I figured out Look I'm not perfect, but you know you guys all think hey, we're good. We're in church on Wednesday night We're serving the Lord. We're doing the right things and and I think I can sustain this through my life Look, that's great if you figure that out. That's great But everybody fails at passing it to the next generation not everybody, but kings failed Nations failed That's why the children of Israel soon as he was dead just like that false gods Just forgot everything killed his own children the man. They wanted to be king the children. They wanted to be king they killed him Because they couldn't figure out this secession. It's a it's look. It's the problem in the Bible and The Old Testament it's the problem. I mean I mean all the guys Moses and and Joshua Don't forget. Don't forget. Don't forget.  You have to follow the leadership example of the Bible You have to be a servant leader in the Bible. You can't be a bramble. You can't raise weaklings because it takes strength and I bet you I well I guarantee you if you Men and women adults in this room if you are the type of people who are gonna be in this Christian life ten years from now You're a strong person There's people in this room that won't be in the Christian life in ten years But the ones that are our strong people They're they're olive trees and their vines and their fig trees They're not and and they're their servants and I guarantee look I Hope that that you're all here But we can't raise weaklings and We can't and look you can't you will raise weaklings by being the bramble leader That that is just my way or the highway you say how much that makes me a tough leader and I'm just You know and this is how The Bible is telling you right here what you'll raise if you rule people in the shadows and threaten with fire and We'll see We'll see how this curse comes literally true in the in the last half of Judges chapter 9, but there is great leadership lessons for us and and everybody's the leader here Like I'm not a leader. Yeah, you're a leader Even the teenagers in this room.


Welcome back to Red Hat Summit 2021. My name is Dave Vellante and you're watching theCUBE where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise, of course, virtually in this case. And I'm pleased to welcome Victor Corumpas, who is the Senior Vice President of Digital Banking at Bank Mandiri. Coming in from Jakarta, welcome to theCUBE, Victor. Great to see you. Hi Dave, great to see you and great to be invited here in theCUBE. Yeah, you're very welcome. And I wonder if you could just give us an overview of the bank, maybe talk a little bit about your strategy, your customers, you know, what the focus is of your company and what your role is there. Okay, maybe I give a short overview about Bank Mandiri itself. So Bank Mandiri is a state-owned enterprise owned by the government, but we're also a public company. Currently, we already have a very big distribution channel in over, so you know Indonesia is an island's country, it's a very huge country. So we are representing all over Indonesia from province of Aceh and up to province of Pakua. And we have about 2,600 branches all over Indonesia and about 15,000 ATMs all over Indonesia. So Bank Mandiri itself is focused on a lot of segment, customer segment in Indonesia, from the corporate side, small, medium enterprise and also retail banking. Now, we are currently focused in turning ourself to have more digital capability. And currently in our current situations, actually it is very good, about 95% of our transactions is already coming from the electronic channel. So it's only about 5% that are coming from the branches. But we know that this is still a journey and we are building more digital capabilities and features and functions on our digital channels to our customer. Got it. Okay, and so your digital journey kind of coincides, I guess, in a way with your container adoption journey. I think that started a few years ago. And so maybe you could talk a little bit about that. I mean, in thinking about modernizing your application portfolio, obviously containers have been around forever but they weren't packaged in a way that could actually be easily utilized. And now you're seeing people in IT roles like yourself really leaning in. Maybe you could talk about some of the technology considerations that impacted that desire to actually leverage containers. I think first is about the scalability. Because with a monolithic architecture, it's kind of difficult to scale up for only specific features. By doing container micro-services, we have options to scale up in a very fast way because one of the features is auto-scaling on the container architectures. Bang Mandiri is a very focused on the transaction banking. So you might say Bang Mandiri is supporting the economy of the country because in any given time in Bang Mandiri, we are running about 4,000 transactions per second. That's a huge transaction number. And having said that, our channel, like I told you, already running about 95% of the transactions. So scalability is always important for us because especially like right now, in Indonesia it's a festive month. It's Ramadan month where Muslim is actually doing fasting. But at the same time, actually there is a lot of needs and people do a lot of transactions. And on this kind of festive seasons, the transaction can be increased up to 40 or 50% suddenly. And that's kind of things always happen in Bang Mandiri. And we must be ready and we must have a scalability on demand. Now, containerizations enabling us to do that. Other thing is about flexibility because on the old days, actually when we want to set up a new environment, it's very difficult and takes a lot of time. And that's affecting the time to market our products by doing the containerizations and putting it on a CICD continuous integration called continuous development platform where we call DevSecOps platform. That kind of things becoming automatic because we set up the DevSecOps platform. And the third one is the consistency actually. So by doing the containerizations, we can put the APIs on our backend APIs in the container itself. And actually it's delivering the environment and a consistent experience to our customer because for example, we promise our customer that every transaction should be finished within two seconds from their mobile banking up to our host and back forward to their mobile banking is only two seconds. So that kind of thing is driving us to move to the current technology which we're using containerization and microservices. Okay, so 4,000 transactions per second. You can't do that on ERC 20 Ethereum for all you crypto fans out there. That's pretty high volume. And if I understand it correctly, Victor, your role is really to envision this digital environment and then ultimately make it happen from a technology standpoint. Is that correct? That's correct. That's correct. So okay, so you now have a number of product lines and teams, you're using the same container platform. Maybe you could share with our audience some of the best practices and learnings that you've taken away on this journey. So I think first of all, we can reuse a lot of components by doing this containerization platform. It's different when we still use the monolithic platform like the application server of Java application server. By using containerization actually, we're providing like a service banking as a service. So whenever we build a new channel, for example, the first one we build a new service, for example, like a fund transfer service. But when we create another channel, for example, a corporate banking electronic channel, or we create another, let's say, wealth management channel, whatever we already built before can be reusable instantly by using this technology. So if I might say that actually, there is a lot of best practices coming by using this platform. And my team got a lot of benefit in terms of faster development time. And also they can deliver the product and service in a high quality manner, minimize the number of error as well. You know, there's a lot of choices out there, obviously. I wonder if you could share what led you to the choice of Red Hat and OpenShift? Okay. So first of all, before we choose the platform actually, we also comparing ourselves with the FinTech and also with the Big Tech in Indonesia as well. So we see that actually they already stopped using Kubernetes and their platform is quite stable and even they can support about 90 to 100 million of customers without any issues at all. So when we see this, we learn about a lot of platform and we finally choose OpenShift because we think that OpenShift and we already do our research. OpenShift is quite stable. And for bank like us that having 4,500 transactions per second, stability is number one, availability is also number one. Now, having said that, after doing our research, we choose OpenShift and we implemented OpenShift in our environment because we promised our customer to provide 99.95% availability Can I just, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Victor. Can you just repeat that? You cut out a little bit. So you said you promised your customers to deliver and then you cut out a little bit. Can you just repeat what you just said there? Okay, so we're giving a promise to our customer providing a 99.95% availability. So this is the starting point of our channel. Sure, in the fissions, we have a fission also to providing four nines which is 99.99%. But I mean, the starting point is 99.95%. And because we have that demand, that requirement, that's one of the reason we choose the OpenShift and Red Hat as our technology stack platform. Got it, okay. And so I have a question. What was it like in terms of just the skills and the adoption for your developers? Was it a big gap to go from where you were to where you are today? Did you have to, what kind of training did you have to do? Did you have to do any sort of outsourcing to accelerate that? Maybe you could describe that, how you closed that skills gap. So definitely in the beginning is quite challenging because although they're already using modern languages like Java or Kotlin, but to understand the concept and to design correctly, yes, we did a lot of training to them. It takes me about three months to give them the proper training in terms of building the right microservices platform and also to building modular architecture in terms of the customer channel. Because this will be the fundamental when you build it correctly in the beginning and actually at the later point, you will enjoy the benefit. So the first three months actually is training and doing research and development and doing a lot of trial and errors. But after the three months, actually we already have the right technology stack, have the right models and our DevSecOps is already working. Then actually after that, the speed is very fast because it's Prince, we do HL way of working, the HL SDLC. It's only one month. So every one month, we already have new features coming in. So that's what we call a huge transformation, a digital transformation inside of our bank. It's three months, actually not bad. I mean, I would have thought on average, it's going to take five or six months to get people up to speed. So three months is pretty good. And I'm also inferring that you weren't just paving the cow path. You weren't just saying, okay, let's take our traditional and then refactor it to digital. You had to re-envision what digital looked like because the digital is different than the traditional. So that's actually pretty good ramp rate. I wonder if you could just go ahead, please comment if you could. Because when you say about revamp, so actually it's not on the IT side only, but also the business side. We implement new way as well. So actually they're implementing a new model. So they're using a design thinking and also a co-creation model where now when we're building a product, so we're not writing the old product in your new way. No, we totally building it from scratch. And involving our key customer and our stakeholder when we're building this product. So actually we implementing new models, what we call design thinking and also co-creation with our customer. So that actually changing the phase of the customer electronic channel a lot. And actually when we want to deploy, we invite our customer to test it first. We call it like usability testing. If they like it, we continue the design. If they don't like it, they give us a feedback how they would like it to be changed. And that's, we appreciate our customer feedback because customer experience is everything now, yeah? So the product can be accepted if the experience on that product is really making customer solving their problem, solving the customer problem and making them enjoying doing transactions in our mobile banking product. I think this is a really important point for people to understand. So you weren't just paving the cow path, I call it. You're taking the old and just try to refactor it and make it exactly turn it into digital. You had to really think about the business, the business processes, the dependencies, the customer experience and then bring it back. What have been some of the business outcomes of this initiative? And maybe after that we can get into some of the future plans. So the outcome, I think this journey since last year, not last year, actually, since October, 2019 we already start the journey. What took us by surprise is actually the pandemic. Suddenly at the first three months when we have the pandemic of COVID, we are being forced to close a lot of branches for temporary because we want to avoid the pandemic situation. And that time actually the demand using our digital channel is increasing a lot. But because we already prepare, actually, we get the benefit. One of the things is the business benefit is relating so during the pandemic nobody can come to the branch and mostly the account opening actually happening online. So we even got about 9,000 account opening per day which is something that we are not imagining before. So the benefit is very clear by using this technology actually enabling us to provide digital capability for our customer and enabling us to open more accounts. We see ourself can grow even not linear but exponentially grow by using this platform. Talking about that Indonesia is a huge country with we have about 250 million populations. And actually there's still a lot of people is not having a bank account at all. Now by doing this actually we open opportunity doing financial inclusion for those people that need a banking account now they can research by using the digital platform as well. Yeah that's an awesome story and it goes back to the reason the real motivator for moving to Kubernetes and containers was scale. And you know you obviously started your digital journey prior to the pandemic but a lot of customers and I'm sure you as well were forced to speed up a portion anyway of the digital component because of the pandemic. Like you said people couldn't walk into the branches. So but now you've got some more time to think about that journey. You've had a lot of learnings 2020 was like a petri dish of experimentation but in real time having to serve customers. What's the future look like for the bank's technology journey? Okay so basically we are not stopping only on the retail side. We want to redefine our customer journey also on the wholesale side and also on the small medium enterprise. There is still a lot of thing that need to be done and required by the customer actually. So on the SME side we want to give them easier access for financing their businesses. I think when we are back to the new normal the business need to have funding for starting their business again. So building an SME platform for them will help a lot and will help the country as well. On the retail side actually like I told you we are focusing on the more financial inclusion because I give you example, right? From the 230 million of Indonesians populations I think by today maybe it's only about 50 million customer that already have a banking account. So there is still a lot of people that need an access faster and cheaper and more efficient way for doing banking transaction. So this also will become our focus. And the last part is actually corporate. What we see now a lot of the corporate require us to open API connectivity doing open banking with them. The government actually the central bank supporting all the banks. They are trying to create an API play books now and then they want to create an API standard for all the youths corporate also can connected to the bank directly using API. So this is also our focus because it will help the country economy when the economy costs the transaction costs getting more efficient, getting more cheaper and there is a lot of transaction can be supported by our bank as well. So I think that's the future that we are imagining and I'm really hope that the pandemic will be finished and we come back to the new normal and we can support more transactions for this country. Yeah, you're here to that. I call it the new abnormal. But so this is a great story. Everybody loves to talk about disruption. We do as well. But people think, oh, it's out with the old in with the new and it's not like that. This is a great story Victor of an established incumbent that is modernizing its applications and its digital experience. And of course the incumbent has the advantage of it's a real business that has customers that has a data that has experiences and if it can modernize its infrastructure and its application portfolio, it actually has an advantage because it's got way more features, way more data, way more customers and more resources. So Victor, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. I really appreciate you sharing your story. Thank you, Dave. Thank you for inviting me in. Thank you. That was our pleasure. And thank you for watching Red Hat Summit 21. This is theCUBE.


I'm an American history teacher. No, I am not a biology teacher. I know a good bit about the heart. They're at least mine and the way it works. I have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is a heart murmur. Apparently when my blood goes in and out of my heart, it kind of hits off of each other rather than it going in and out unencumbered the way it's supposed to. And then my heart muscle thickens a little bit as a result of all that and it can cause a ventricular, ventricular tachycardia, which is where the bottom chamber beats on its own. And if it does it that way for a considerable period of time, that, you know, I could be in trouble. When I went to him, he said I had like an 8% chance. I don't even think it was 10% of having VTEC. And as a result of that, they wanted me to get a defibrillator put in. I had the defibrillator put in and as a result, I'm actually still here talking to you right now because I was walking my daughter to school and I had this really weird like lightheadedness feeling and the kind of weird sensation in my chest and I tried to catch my breath and I couldn't do it. So I told her to go along and the defibrillator went off. It actually went off four times. Maybe if I didn't have this, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. There's a good chance of that for sure. I always tell Dr. Wang he saved my life. He has a story about a teacher that he had that died when he was in third grade. He had had the teacher in first grade and he told me the story and he said he became a doctor because of that. And so I thought that was really cool.