UK banks are becoming increasingly frustrated by their
core banking systems and plan to overhaul them in order to stay
competitive, according to a study of the sector jointly sponsored
by Accenture and SAP.
The UK findings, which closely mirror the situation
internationally, have revealed that many banks are being held back
by legacy systems that are overly complex and insufficiently
flexible. The cost of running existing systems and their
vulnerability to processing error were among other widely voiced
concerns.
Inefficient legacy systems mean UK banking staff spend only just
over half of their time with customers and the remainder on
back-office processing tasks. Poorly integrated systems also mean
that customer data is not always fully accessible to banking staff
to enable them to identify prospective sales opportunities.
Stuart Taylor, a banking partner in Accenture’s financial
services practice, said, “UK banks need a new edge to beat the
competition. A core banking system that enables new propositions to
go to market rapidly, supports overall operational cost efficiency,
and enables the bank to deliver a fully integrated service to
customers will go a long way.”
The survey also found that UK banks experience a fifth more
unnecessary delays in processing customer requests than their
European counterparts – 58% of UK staff had encountered problems,
against 49% in Europe.