News that Apple is upping its game in mobile payments serves as another reminder that traditional banks are increasingly under siege. Aside from managing a growing mountain of regulatory requirements and escalating margin pressures, financial institutions face the emergence of formidable competitors, often from companies in the retail and communications sectors that haven’t traditionally operated in this space.
It is hardly a secret that the IT infrastructures in many of Britain’s banks today are in poor health. Recent comments by Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority recently took the discussion one step further, exposing the complex nature of current core banking systems and revealing that it may in fact be a false economy for banks to keep avoiding investment in new IT systems.