Over the past decade, the financial services sector has been subject to greater scrutiny and regulatory control. The rise of Fintech and ‘Born Digital’ organisations are increasing the need for traditional institutions to become agile and address legacy technical debt. Many institutions have started this journey and often an interim stage has involved ‘bolting on’ fintech solutions to create a digital façade.
This approach has enabled the life of legacy systems to be extended, however by spanning both traditional and new platforms, an increase in risk has been introduced. There have been several incidents where breaches occurred, client data leaked, and this became public knowledge.
There can be a temptation to postpone critical renewal efforts indefinitely because the risks are seen as too great. Continuing to accumulate technical debt by serving outdated core and support systems can grind progress to a halt, stymie innovation and drive business to competitors. The strategic risks of operating with an ageing core are far greater than the project risks of renewing the core.
The Chief Information Officer of today is looking to drive innovation to reduce the time it takes to launch new products and services. The concept of open APIs shared outside the enterprise with ecosystem partners is an emerging approach.
The pandemic has added further layers of complexity to organisations as the workforce went from centralised campus focused, to a remote homebased workforce. Less than 10% of companies have or expect all employees to return to the office, giving the need to keep employees ‘connected’, maintain a first-class customer experience and secure the ‘edge’.
Future winners in the financial services industry will be those who can envision and execute business initiatives faster than their competitors and at SCC, our ethos is to put the customer at the heart of what we do. New technologies constantly appear and evolve, and our position of independence ensures investment decisions are only made to adopt new ideas and technologies when they support our customers remaining competitive.