The mission-critical role of financial services technology

Technology is mission-critical for banks and financial services firms’ operations, risk management and customer experience. The technology platforms used by banks become deeply embedded in how they operate and their teams’ work. Even a seemingly simple upgrade project, if not expertly managed, could result in unintended negative knock-on impacts. Mismanaged deployment risks range from inaccurate integration with other platforms to staff needing to fully understand the new processes and procedures to operate the updated kit.

Many and varied internal and external specialists must be consulted with or directly involved in bank technology projects, which can be time-consuming and introduce risk to upgrades. So perhaps it is unsurprising that 50% of banks put off upgrading their IT. ¹

But in an industry built on technology, where the pace of innovation and security challenges are developing at pace, banks and financial services firms cannot afford to delay upgrades to the systems their businesses and customers rely upon. And as almost 60% of CEOs perceive digital initiatives as taking too long to complete ², technologists and IT teams are under pressure to deliver to compressed timelines.

Countdown to upgrade launch commences

Swedbank sought to deploy the additional operational elements, customer experience driving functionality, and futureproofing utility by updating the Murex platform they rely on daily. They wanted to upgrade and fast.

Within a six-month window, they aimed to have an enhanced Murex platform fully embedded in their organization and take full advantage of the additional features to manage market risks within the “Market Risk Box” or MRB, connect data and transaction interfaces, complete end-of-day processing, and monitor positions via LiveBook.

Swedbank knew that for the project to be successful and the risks associated with upgrades mitigated, this could not just be a technology-centric project. It would also need to be a human-centric project. Swedbank needed to ensure that while all the technical contingencies and platform dependencies were identified and managed, they also retained sight of the human side of digital change. They needed to address operational process change and user training while coordinating across teams with different expertise and skill sets.