51 Percent of Financial Services Companies Believe Existing Tech is Holding Them Back (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Legacy technology can be a major obstacle to digital transformation projects and, according to a new survey of financial services technology decision makers carried out for business consultancy Janeiro Digital, almost 51 percent say existing technology is holding back innovation. Three of the biggest roadblocks are seen as lack of support for change (34 percent), legacy technology and infrastructure (31.6 percent) and a lack of in-house technical skill (29.5 percent). As a consequence 23 percent of respondents believe their company is behind in digital transformation compared to others in the industry. Only 47 percent are currently implementing new technologies, with 12.6 percent wanting to do so but not having started. That leaves 40 percent not innovating which could see them lose out in a world where consumers want better, faster financial products.

Comments

Don't blame the tools

[Revek]

Blame you're implementation of them. Improperly trained Bosses and ingrained static procedures often are the reason the tech you have isn't working for you.

Re:Don't blame the tools

[KingMotley]

I suspect there's been 15-20 years of programmers telling the higher ups that they need to rewrite this stuff and the bosses saying they can't afford it/don't have to time to do it/won't hire the additional people to do it. All the while creating new non-standard tweaks to the system that has turned it into a big hairy ball of mess.

Sucks to be them now.

Source: I also work in IT, and deal with financial clients (Most of the big names).

Re:Don't blame the tools

[MachineShedFred]

This is a manager sickness - they don't see the difference between "operations" and "engineering".

The operations people should be fighting those fires. The engineers should be creating long term solutions that prevent the fires to begin with. If your engineers are working a fire hose all day, nobody ever shuts off the fuel source and all you get is fires.

They only have themselves to blame

[Pig Hogger]

They’re the source of their own problem. Whenever they manage to hire brilliant people, they hold them back with arcane process and lengthy byzantine procedures (mostly enacted to internally cover the bosses’ asses).

This is not hard

[PopeRatzo]

Instead of complaining about legacy tech "holding them back", maybe these "financial service" companies should invest in some better tech instead of using those record profits for stock buybacks and bonuses to C-level management. You've been eating out on the backs of taxpayers all through this last decade of the government giving you free money. Maybe it's time to do something that won't, you know, bring down the fucking economy again.

Just a thought.

Really?

[AlanBDee]

So a consulting company held a survey and found that 51% of companies believe that legacy technology is the biggest hurtle they face. That's good news for this consulting company that sells "solutions" to that problem. Oddly enough, my banker thinks I need a credit card and that car salesman insists that my old (2007) car is about to fall apart and I should buy a new one.

Legacy technology and technical debt is a problem that is often overlooked and not budgeted for because it won't affect the stock price this quarter. Still, forgive me if I don't believe that this survey accurately outlines the problems that companies actually have to this degree.

Regulations are holding them back

[rsilvergun]

there are rules about how they change their tech to keep them from pulling all sorts of tricks and shenanigans with their software. They're hoping to make those rules go away. Believe me, you do not want this. Yeah, you'll get your new tech, but you'll get an unstable financial system and a crash that makes 2008 look like a happy memory.

Faster and better?

[Anne Thwacks]

I think not.

What consumers/customers want (even if they don't know how to pronounce it) from financial products is:

• security - as in not having their data leaking all over the place
• privacy - as in not having their data sold to anyone who pays
• not to be ripped off
• clarity - as in being told the truth about what they are paying for
• honesty (yes, I know they won't get it, but its what they want).

So, in other words, not to have to deal with financial institutions at all.