I'd like to see a tech company where the time to process a simple transaction like a balance transfer is measured in days.
It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
21–30 of 264 posts
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#22I'm of the opinion that all banks should be technology companies, in that pretty much all of their operations rely on computing, so the better they are at developing and operating computer systems they better they'll be able to do business. Unfortunately, many banks (at least in the UK market) seem to see IT as some kind of overhead, to be minimized in cost and/or outsourced (e.g. Lloyds outsourcing to IBM https://ww…
Not only in the UK. France, at least, is also like that.
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#23The idea that companies can be defined as a binary "tech company" or "not a tech company" is a trope created by tech VCs/entrepreneurs as a means to signal that they are "special" from businesses that we created more than 15 years ago.
Most of my clients (mainly PE investors) typically define companies as either "Tech enabled", "tech lead", "nothing". This means usually two things to them: (1) the more tech enabled the higher the margins (EBITDA) I can achieve and (2) the more tech enabled the higher the multiple I can achieve.
And that's just it. Everything else is marketing.
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#24Really? Sounds like the author has never worked in either, and just reads news sites. Having worked in several of both 'MegaBank LLC' and 'A Small Tech Company', they're utterly different beasts. Just because both mention blockchain doesn't mean they're the same.
Culturally, they're worlds apart. Banks offer a career path up and away from technology so you get unmotivated developers joining who are just looking for the next leg-up the career ladder.
Banks are only driven to make money, and the "worst" of the employees are utterly driven by the end-of-year bonus, and to hell with anyone that gets in their way.
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#25One of the large trends in financial technology development that I've seen is that banks seem to heavily prefer that their staff leave and form third party software service providing companies than hire and allocate resources to internal teams. This means transaction costs are driven up massively, but the leading industry players typically deploy innovations in tandem with their competitors.
My banker friends have big problems trying to modernize sections of their operations on the basis that too much political capital is needed to liquidate entire floors of staff - but that restriction only lasts until someone has an off-the-shelf solution offering 25M in labour savings per quarter.
These inefficiencies and cultural issues hamper execution leading to poorer client outcomes, lower margins, and weaker strategic positioning.
I'm glad that some banks are pushing forward to gobble up that easy ROI, but I am concerned that the net effect of this type of automation is systemic risk, as the industry begins to bifurcate between low and high margin banks, and the latter are afforded accelerating capability to consolidate the former.
Less players. More capacity. More reliance. Less redundancy. Not necessarily bad for John Q. Everyman, but if he's ultimately carrying that risk while pocketing none of the efficiency gains...
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#26This isnt really true. Banks dont pay anywhere near tech salaries. Its all lip service. The flow of good engineers is always banks -> tech companies and never tech companies -> banks.
I make significantly more at GS than I did at google. The difference is that the majority of my compensation comes from the yearly bonus - a quirk in finance.
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#27Really? Sounds like the author has never worked in either, and just reads news sites. Having worked in several of both 'MegaBank LLC' and 'A Small Tech Company', they're utterly different beasts. Just because both mention blockchain doesn't mean they're the same. Culturally, they're worlds apart. Banks offer a career path up and away from technology so you get unmotivated developers joining who are just looking for t…
From the article:
> (Disclosure: I used to work at Goldman designing derivatives, not apps. Also I have a Marcus savings account.)
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#28I work in a bank and man - shits cool af
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#29For some reason, I thought this article would go into a different direction - like about how tech companies are borrowing money at record rates because of dirt cheap Fed interest, which to me is a sign of a new financial bubble.
Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies
#30Don't believe banks when they say they're a technology company.
Banks are no place for coders. https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/276069/problems-wit...