Why are banks not innovative?

[yasockie]

I have recently declined a couple of offers with banks because of their backwards practices.
I understand that this is a heavily regulated industry, but what I saw is an exercise in masochism.
For example what is wrong with using git on a local project? It's open source, there is no virus in it
How about using virtual machines or containers to isolate stuff? Yeah maybe, but not yourself, you have to submit a ticket and not on your local machine, just somewhere far away and no admin rights.
And much more stuff like that.
I am pretty sure that Dodd-Frank or any other similar solution like that says nothing about the software you can use and that this is pretty much self-inflicted.
Is there a haven somewhere, perhaps a quasi-banking institutions like PayPal where you can enjoy working with big data and numbers but not be burdened by all this?

[SpontaneousOrder]

I have recently declined a couple of offers with banks because of their backwards practices.
I understand that this is a heavily regulated industry, but what I saw is an exercise in masochism.
For example what is wrong with using git on a local project? It's open source, there is no virus in it
How about using virtual machines or containers to isolate stuff? Yeah maybe, but not yourself, you have to submit a ticket and not on your local machine, just somewhere far away and no admin rights.
And much more stuff like that.
I am pretty sure that Dodd-Frank or any other similar solution like that says nothing about the software you can use and that this is pretty much self-inflicted.
Is there a haven somewhere, perhaps a quasi-banking institutions like PayPal where you can enjoy working with big data and numbers but not be burdened by all this?

I suspect it's partially down to a lack of competition. I'm at a large financial institution (not a bank) and it's awful. Complete chimps have written and architected the systems here, but it works and they have a large enough market share that technology - for the most part - isn't an issue when it comes to keeping the young upstarts at bay. They just buy them.

Banks get given free money via QE etc, so efficiency isn't always top of their agenda.

[BrilloPad]

If you do innovative stuff then you have to get in cutting edge people to maintain it. That stops them bringing in hoardes of Bobs in to keep the stuff running.

They try to cut every penny.

Then there are disasterous consequenes......

[minestrone]

I think it all boils down to the massive hierarchical management structure in these places which they seem to fill with people who know feck all about banking or IT but who have mastered career progression fellatio.

[original PM]

I think it all boils down to the massive hierarchical management structure in these places which they seem to fill with people who know feck all about banking or IT but who have mastered career progression fellatio.

Yup archaic, inefficient backwards practices are the best ways for the continuation of pole chocking and moving to a band 4c salary level.

[v8gaz]

Nope, its them being risk averse. They need to know that there is a vendor at the top of the support chain that can be sued if things go wrong. That is all.

[d000hg]

I hardly think allowing a contractor to turn up and start using a different version control system is "innovative".

[minestrone]

I hardly think allowing a contractor to turn up and start using a different version control system is "innovative".

Clearcase is still heavily used in banks and it is pretty common in the places that have it to have developers constantly asking to migrate from it.

[NickFitz]

I hardly think allowing a contractor to turn up and start using a different version control system is "innovative".

But, assuming the contractor actually makes something the bank uses, they're then committed to having to support that VCS in addition to whatever they already have, including integrating it into build and deployment systems and all that malarkey. And if things go wrong four years from now at half past three on Boxing Day morning, will they have anybody there or on call who knows anything about it?

[jmo21]

The bank I am contracting at just now (certainly the department I'm in) uses Subversion for code, but PVCS for all SQL scripts.

Only a few people in the department have licenses to PVCS, so you have to ask them to check it our and hold it for you while you do your work, then send them changes to check in.