Banks and dated technology

cardi_b

It is known that banks, particularly the major ones, are running on really dated tech. RBS Group seems to be the worst given their various issues with IT, though Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC don't seem much better.

Have any actually made plans to move to more modern tech for their banking systems? I think Nationwide said they wanted to bring in something newer but I don't think it has actually happened yet - their internet banking looks circa-IE8.

EachPenny

cardi_b wrote: »

It is known that banks, particularly the major ones, are running on really dated tech. RBS Group seems to be the worst given their various issues with IT, though Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC don't seem much better.

Have any actually made plans to move to more modern tech for their banking systems? I think Nationwide said they wanted to bring in something newer but I don't think it has actually happened yet - their internet banking looks circa-IE8.

I'd rather they keep on using older but reliable technology and pay us some more interest, rather than spending millions on developing new software that won't ever work, but looks 'cool'.

RG2015

I believe that they have progressively added newer layers of tech bolted onto out-dated platforms. But crucially, it works and that is all that matters.

The newer challenger banks do not have the burden of this legacy and hence have more modern systems.

The traditional banks are terrified of a complete collapse that may result from a major update to their system architecture. Hence they are quite happy to accept the minor inconvenience of negative publicity if their systems are down for a few hours.

Banking competition is so intense that no one is prepared to take any risk in this area. And for this reason they are focusing all of their efforts on innovation in headline grabbing areas such as smartphone, contactless, bio-metrics and star-trek banking.

PS: It is not really Star Trek as Jean Luc Picard tells us:

The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity
— Captain Jean-Luc Picard

AirlieBird

Virgin Money is building a Digital Banking platform through which they will launch their full service current account, planned for beta this year and full launch next year. AIUI though this will be separate from, and in addition to, the online platform rather than a replacement for it.
More info in this presentation: https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/investor-relations/2017/vm-capital-markets-day-presentation.pdf

stclair

I love AS400 and CICS

gt94sss2

I believe a lot of HSBC's IT systems are actually relatively new. As far back as 2008, they had a global programme called "OneHSBC" which was designed to standardise/replace their ICT systems globally and minimise the use of bespoke country specific software.

At one stage, they were saying this enabled them to rollout upgrades every 18 months or so, as they no longer needed to spend so much time on keeping custom software going.

http://www.economist.com/node/16646044 refers to this topic, though I think it overplays Metro Bank's position as they are just using one of the large 3rd party firms to provide their services rather than running their own.

msallen

cardi_b wrote: »

It is known that banks, particularly the major ones, are running on really dated tech. RBS Group seems to be the worst given their various issues with IT, though Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC don't seem much better.

Have any actually made plans to move to more modern tech for their banking systems? I think Nationwide said they wanted to bring in something newer but I don't think it has actually happened yet - their internet banking looks circa-IE8.

If you think IE8 is old technology you haven't seen what happens at the back end. Many of the back end systems of the major high street banks are still running code written in COBOL, transacting via CICS, running on old "big iron".

If it works they have no incentive to spend many many millions re-inventing the wheel.

maninthestreet

3278 terminal, anyone??

realaledrinker

Co-op Bank attempted to implement the Finacle banking platform from the Indian IT giant Infosys. They gave up after spending best part of £1bn on it as it was never going to be fit for purpose and it contributed to almost breaking the bank.

The Nationwide on line platform is a modern SAP Banking implementation above legacy back end systems.

Other banks have relatively robust systems built progressively over the last 40 years. If it ain't broke ... (with apologies to NatWest).

Robisere

TSB/Sabadell have a new system, migrated to high street customers in 2018:

http://www.bankingtech.com/2017/12/tsb-unveils-new-banking-tech-platform-proteo4uk/

It takes a European bank to show how it should be done.

zerog

I wonder if any banks still use physical tape archives