Nearly all the banks I worked with treat IT as a second class citizen in their organisation. Some have developed this culture further than others. This would be an ancient method of doing business in any industry, it is even more so in the banking industry.

Why?
The financial services sector has been through some interesting changes and transformations over time.
Take money as an example which has taken forms of golden bars, silver coins and paper notes, plastic cards and most recently just information (bits and bytes).
Similar changes have taken part in the customer basis as in focus and in size, risk management as well as fraud and crime, and many more areas.

In an industry where information became the spinning ball and handling information is the game, how long can the player survive who is failing to recognise the role of Information Technology (IT)?

It seems there is a chance that the behemots and clumsy can survive pretty long and stay in the game, but not without risks:

• economies of scale is on their side – although when things go bad, they go bad big time
• risk averse behavior is a safe play – not a winner against competition especially when the economy is up
• creative practices – try that trick when regulation is closing in, and it always does

What if there is a player in the arena who recognises that business is about managing information, information is best placed with IT, and business better leave information management to IT?
As it happens, there is an expression out there for such synergy – business and IT alignment – often taken lightly and hardly anything more than a wordy item on the list of marketing promises, missing the catchy buzzwords and lacking of elegant phrases like “the art of the possible”.
Despite its shortcomings and the slim chances of making it on the list of promises for Web 4.0, it could have some substance to it when it is played well:

• business will get an answer to their questions; and maybe even get the right and honest answer
• IT will know how to answer and will answer fast as they should without costing an arm and a leg

The banking industry must try – IT may get it right.