22 Dec 2008
Financial services is the biggest spender on IT - and this year has been hit like never before by economic crisis. We look back on the top financial services stories during a turbulent year.
City cries out for skilled IT matchmakers
Market turmoil is expected to result in IT budgets in the financial services industry taking a hammering. But many of those under the cosh will face additional pressures, as a result of some shotgun mergers.
Bank pins recovery hopes on high-performance IT
Lloyds TSB is using high-performance computing technology to improve its risk management and valuation capabilities while the banking industry comes to terms with the turmoil across the sector.
Standard Life learns from past offshoring mistakes
Insurance group Standard Life is reviving its offshoring strategy in a bid to reduce costs and gain more flexibility in application development so that new products are brought to market faster.
Banking on progress through IT
HSBC united the roles of chief operating officer and chief information officer (CIO) into a single chief technology and services officer role. The move was the decision of chief executive Michael Geoghegan, and had the aim of putting technology at the forefront of the banking giant’s offering.
Investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort is relocating its London Docklands datacentre in a multimillion-pound project that will see a complete revamp of hardware, software and management processes.
Nationwide invests in IT change
Nationwide Building Society is investing £300m over the next four years in an IT-enabled business transformation plan, with up to 80 per cent of the spending to cover technology projects.
Citi cracks Egg IT integration
Banking group Citi has completed the first stage of its IT integration process following the acquisition of online bank Egg in May 2007. The project includes standardising the systems of the group’s five companies, and centralising core infrastructure and application development operations at a new computer centre in Derby.
The next generation of payment systems
The revolution in payment systems heralded by the 2006 introduction of chip-and-PIN shows no sign of slowing, with contactless card and mobile device systems developing fast. But biometric-based systems remain a long way off.
Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) started a complete revamp of its hardware and software infrastructure as part of a group-wide business transformation project.
Contactless cards trial begins
Lloyds TSB has started a multimillion-pound contactless card payments trial in London, ahead of plans to create a totally cash-free environment for the 2012 Olympics.
What has been the big news in financial services IT for you in 2008? Tell us your views by submitting a reader comment below.
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