• Lev Lesokhin, SVP Strategy & Analytics at Cast


• 28.09.2018 10:45 am
Banks

Banks in other geographies don’t have as many problems as UK banks. Based on our research, UK-serving banks such as HSBC and TSB don’t do as good a job controlling the structural quality of their legacy systems. So the UK banking sector has some catching up to do in getting that kind of software intelligence.

Most of today’s regulatory focus has been focused on securing frameworks and processes to make sure security is considered throughout the lifecycle of systems. Very little focus has historically been paid to the intrinsic reliability of the software itself. Software is a product of many software developers across geographies and vendors, particularly the case with international banks such as HSBC. Making sure their product is actually reliable is something that’s currently largely left to chance. This is why we’re in a situation where banking software fails us so regularly.

Most businesses don’t have the time or the talent to focus on improving the structural robustness of their software and remain focused on cutting IT costs. Regulators have a role to play and should support common standards such as the CISQ standard for software reliability and security more vocally. Until we raise the minimum bar for quality via industry-wide action, we are going to continue to see a prevalence of software outages.