This is my fourth job. I have spent more than 4 years in two of the last three and about 2 in another, this is a new job for me. All my employers have been companies that have some hand in developing applications for the Banking Industry.
There are lot of similarities and an even higher disparities in the way these companies operate. The differences are wide and varying. In terms of the technology used - some prefers open platform and industry standards, some proprietary infrastructure, some are less adaptive to technology some work on support from partner applications. There are differences in the way the solution is approached some offer products and let somebody else pick up the incremental bits, some have the aspirations of becoming a systems integrator along with the product and offer loads of services, some refuse to accept that the market is changing. Even the deployment architecture changes depending on what else the product and the company offers. As companies, the way they manage people are also different including how they deploy people on job and at Banks. Of course some are more professional than the others. I thought Banking would remain the same and I am glad to report that it is the same. While one may use a different term and have different approach to solving a problem, the problem remains the same.
I can visualize the problems that banks, their CIOs and Business Users have in selecting the products. They are concerned that some of these companies and products may change, some may advance and become unaffordable, some may collapse, may bring in complexities, force costs for upgrades and maintenance, refuse to change and what and all. There are industry consultants and market watchers who survey the industry and provide data. These data are at industry level. A bench mark or a yard stick depends on defining the standards that could be accepted.
I do not however see such a common process being defined that is accepted by the industry, like say in the ERP industry which I should also indicate has multiple vendors of different sizes. There are some standards being defined for interoperability between banks but not while defining the processes for operations within the bank. Perhaps the answer lies in education, I don't see Banking Processes being taught in MBA schools, for most Banking is the same as accounting. Accounting may have got standardized but I don't think Banking has.
I have seen Product Managers, Analysts, Consultants, Developers and others creating scenarios on their own. In fact, I have seen Bankers not agreeing to a process that has been implemented in a similar bank for a common product perhaps because of the history of incremental development of the IT process.
If it is the banks that are driving the IT market then it is high time that this standardization emerges from them for their own cost benefits. If it is left to IT companies, they will do it in their way, perhaps each in an optimum way but none the less their way. If it is the latter then we would have to wait for one vendor to take a significant leadership role and market share before this standardization kicks in. Till that time services in Banking will remain as a major revenue earners for Banking companies.
