FEATURE
senior bankers become set in their ways , they prefer employees who will say yes to work and do it the way it has always been done . This approach can stifle a culture of innovation , meaning banks are left behind the competition .
Risk avoidance : Sensible or stifling ?
In many banks , change only comes when it is forced , driven by an inability to compete , or by identification of risk or technological deficits that can no longer be fixed with workarounds or sticking plasters . With 80 % of bankers saying the board doesn ’ t want high-risk projects carried out on their watch , an ‘ if it ain ’ t broke ’ mentality often prevails , even in the face of the huge benefits offered by digital transformations .
This risk-averse culture is highly prevalent in the banking world , and – while highly understandable – is part of why challenger banks and FinTechs are able to be more agile . Of course , any digital transformation carries an element of risk , especially when carried out poorly . Research has found that 57 % of the UK banks that have migrated their core banking infrastructure to the cloud suffered service disruptions during the migration process .
However , the potential costs of doing nothing far outweigh the risk of a wellimplemented digital transformation going wrong . Instead of sticking their heads in the sand and being unwilling to take the necessary steps to change , banking teams instead need to face up to the challenge and try and find ways to move forward in a way that reduces risk but enables modernisation .
One step at a time : The coexistence model
One way banks can reduce the risk of digital transformation is to adopt a coexistence model . This approach is one where banks deploy a new cloud-native core banking engine without immediately ripping out legacy technology , so that the two can work alongside each other . By having an API driven cloud core banking platform that runs alongside the legacy systems banks can take the time to
Steve Round , President and Co-Founder of SaaScada
migrate critical systems from their legacy architecture in a low-risk way .
Alongside benefits related to performance and reliability , this approach gives banks concrete evidence of the value of their cloud-native systems by yielding small ,
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