Discipline and Growth

The biggest challenge in 2007 will be to cope with the global growth of the banking industry while maintaining cost, risk, capital and regulatory discipline. The positive growth development over recent years stretches IT and operations areas in all major banks. CIOs need to further reduce complexity in their systems' landscape to be more flexible and react faster to changing customer demands. The application of service-oriented architecture will help achieve these targets.

Additionally, the cost basis needs to be kept at a reasonable level to keep the bank's products competitive and attractive, particularly in times of decreasing margins. This requires close cooperation of IT and operations with their internal customers to find the right level of investment into growth initiatives as well as simultaneous IT reengineering projects that further drive costs out of the system.

As mentioned, maintaining regulatory discipline is an absolute must. IT and operations play a crucial role in complying with the growing regulatory requirements.