Large financial services companies are often the driving force behind the corporate IT sector, with the ability to invest large sums in the innovative use of certain technologies. The cloud has been a great example in recent years, but today the technology seems to barely make the headlines thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) in particular stealing the spotlight.
Every sector is doing something in the area of artificial intelligence, but the financial services sector is facing a seismic shift as this technology could lead to an unprecedented reduction in IT complexity and cost. This won't be without major challenges for organizations and their employees, as an AI named Dave will do the work of thousands of people without breaking a sweat.
It's no surprise that this year's survey includes several articles on banks using AI, but there are other topics to ponder, such as the many IT failures at banks, as well as interviews with IT industry leaders.
Here are Computer Weekly's top 10 cloud stories of 2024.
The threat that AI poses to jobs in this sector is a good starting point. Various reports predict that banks will see quick returns on their investments in artificial intelligence technology, but those savings have to come from somewhere—and it's inevitable that the workforce will shrink.
In the report, Evident, a banking industry benchmarking company, announced its that AI-related jobs are the only safe jobs in the banking sector, with one in 50 employees hired by the top 10 banks currently working in AI-related roles.
It's not just those who perform repetitive tasks (which is the primary goal of AI replacement) that needs to adapt, but also senior leaders. If they don't get the AI, then they should probably worry about their position.
A lack of understanding of AI and what it means for a bank will hold organizations back in a highly competitive environment, which is why banks such as Lloyds Banking Group are training senior staff. Bank working with training provider Cambridge Spark train 200 of its senior leaders to enable the organization to make the most of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
One of the leaders in the coalfield banking sector is ING CTO Daniele Tonnella. In an interview with Computer Weekly, he describes how the bank is carefully ensuring that GenAI becomes not just a tech toy, but the major force for transformation that it is.
In this interview, Tonella describes the four layers of IT it has in the bank, with the aforementioned developments in artificial intelligence being the innovation-focused layer. The other three levels of reliability, scalable technology platform and quality control are also explained.
Of course, the financial sector is a complex ecosystem in which businesses focus on specific areas. Information giant Bloomberg is a key part of this sector, providing the people and machines that work in it with the information they need to make the right decisions.
In this interviewOne of the company's key technology leaders talks to Computer Weekly about the company's current challenges and plans. Unsurprisingly, this includes the introduction of GenAI.
When it comes to IT challenges in the financial services industry, few are as big as replacing a core engine at the Bank of England without causing major disruption to the country.
This is exactly what has been done in stages since 2017, when the regulator began planning to replace the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, which processes £800 billion of payments a day. CIO and Technology Leader Nathan Monk told Computer Weekly it was “one hell of a trip.”
While the move to a single brand at ASN Bank in the Netherlands may not have been as large as replacing the Bank of England's core system, it meant comprehensive integration, modernization of core infrastructure and increased cybersecurity.
In this interviewASN CTO Sebastian Kalshoven describes the journey. He notes that his job as a swimming coach involves constant improvement, and compares this to his current role in a bank.
If one thing is certain in the banking industry, it is that there will be failures in banking IT systems, some of which will be quite large and disruptive – and this always seems to happen on payday.
Barclays got involved earlier this year because customers were left unable to access the web application and online bankingmake payments from their accounts or access customer services following a significant outage of the bank's IT infrastructure that occurred on payday in January.
Why do banking systems fail? According to expertsPart of the problem is that banks operate a “spaghetti” technology structure that creates a game of “technological Jenga,” but also that the cost of providing downtime is now higher than the cost of actual downtime.
We all know about the complexity of IT in banks, but less about the calculations used to make IT investment decisions. One IT professional said it all comes down to a simple question: How much will it cost to achieve 99.999% availability, and wouldn't it be cheaper to just pay compensation if something goes wrong?
But the banks are not always to blame. Today, they increasingly rely on third-party suppliers. Lloyds banking group, for example, was one of Organizations affected by Amazon Web Services outage in the USA.
Amid growing concerns about the public and private sectors' over-reliance on large tech platforms in the US, the outage has led to renewed calls for greater transparency about the sustainability of the nation's hosting arrangements.
Other third parties that influence the day-to-day operations of a bank include technology companies. Fraudsters use social media to scam people. It doesn't matter how good your security systems are if someone is tricked into giving money to scammers via social media.
That's why banks and tech companies are teaming up on an initiative to share information about scammers. Read more about the intelligence sharing pilot projectwhich brought together banks such as HSBC, NatWest and Santander with technology companies Amazon, Google and Meta.
