U.K. Tech Association Urges Banks to Upgrade IT Infrastructure

Intellect, the trade association for the UK technology sector, today called for British regulators to force banks to upgrade their legacy IT systems.

According to Intellect, banks need to tackle the "substandard" infrastructure that underpins the majority of the financial system, or risk future financial crises, controversies and systems failures.

"Financial infrastructure is the complex web of technology systems and networks that underpin every function in a bank – from processing transactions to assessing loan applications," read a portion of Intellect's statement. "It is the 'plumbing' that allows the lifeblood of the financial system – data – to flow to where it is needed in order for decisions to be made."

Intellects claimed that banks are willing to spend money on cutting edge technology that facilitates high frequency trading or reduces the time it takes to process a transaction in the capital markets, but not on modernizing its IT infrastructure.

"This infrastructure is the foundation upon which the entire financial system is built and it has been neglected for far too long," said Ben Wilson, head of financial services programs at Intellect.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio