The hidden risk

Demos Finance is conducting research into the state of core banking technology in the UK. High profile systems outages at a number of high street banks in recent years have increased the focus on the resilience of these systems in the face of ever increasing demand. A recent Bank of England Financial Stability Report highlighted bank operations – including IT – as an area of increasing concern to bank executives. 

Despite this, the area has received little public scrutiny or detailed data gathering. This three-month project will use surveys of practicioners to take a detailed look at the perceived state of bank IT systems. It will explore measures being taken to tackle any deficiencies, and try to establish the degree to which failure of these systems presents a systemic risk to the banking system as a whole. It will also examine the capacity of banks to address IT failures and of regulators to oversee this area of bank operations and consider any policy solutions.

Methodology

We will be surveying a wide range of bank executives and end users, as well as regulators and intermediaries, through face-to-face interviews and online surveys. In addition, we will carry out detailed analysis of data on transaction volumes over time, system outages, and IT spending.

Staff

Deputy Director Jodie Ginsberg is leading research on this project. For more information, you can contact her on jodie.ginsberg@demos.co.uk.

Accenture is kindly supporting Demos Finance with pro-bono research on this project.