Page 60 - Barclays Bank (B)

However, banks were having to face changes necessary
to achieve the efficiency and effectiveness of the role,

structure and processes of critical functions such as IT,
risk and compliance. For instance, more banks are

moving to open architecture, which means they no longer

have complete end-to-end control internally of their IT

systems or data.

In addition, the proliferation of ‘fintechs’ and the

encroachment of large tech firms into the banking sector,

has heralded that digital technologies are providing

customers with alternative offerings, often at a lower cost

than the banks can provide.

Banks that accelerate their replacement of legacy IT stand

to gain a competitive edge that will be hard to erode.

Staley commented that:

“In many ways, Barclays is a technology company

with a balance sheet and regulators. Roughly 30% of
the GDP of the United Kingdom goes through our

payments system every day. So having the right
technology in place is a critical obligation that

Barclays has towards the United Kingdom. Our back

office system has to function if the nation’s economy

is to function.” (12)

Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays U.K. stated in 2017 that: