IT investments have been key to theRoyal Bank of Scotlandincreasing
income, its IT department claimed last week.
In the wake of the company reporting an impressive surge in
operating profit, registering a surplus of £5.1bn in just six
months, the benefits of IT driven change were credited with this
11% improvement in trading.
Productivity has risen dramatically, with income rising at 8%,
taking turnover to £14.69bn. This was attributed to the bank policy
to drive more business outside the traditional branch. Service
volumes have increased, with 6% more business being conducted at
ATMs.
Despite driving customers out of the bank and into a
self service culture,
Royal Bank of Scotland claimed that customer satisfaction was
at an all time high. "While we maintained our focus on service
quality, our UK-based telephony team continued to record
market-leading customer satisfaction scores," said Anita Valantine,
PR manager for Royal Bank of Scotland.
However, she admitted that spending on IT has stabilised, so
overheads have not eaten into the "significant productivity gains".
The bank has rationalised spending by standardising its IT
infrastructure. It also reported it was "investing in lean
manufacturing' approaches across our operational centres" which
were expected to delivery further efficiency improvements.
The annual IT spend of Royal Bank of Scotland is just under £1bn
a year and RBOS said it had no plans to use offshore outsourcing of
IT.