Banking and a Tale of Two Systems

Abstract

The 1980s were the worst of times for many in the banking industry. Following the deregulation of the early 1980s, the industry nearly went into shock as more than 2,000 banks and savings and loans failed. Banking could no longer be characterized as a staid enterprise of blue pin-striped suits and “banker’s hours.” Deregulation and competition made traditional ways of doing business obsolete and, in many cases, disastrous for banks that failed to adapt. A record number of banks were unable to make the transition successfully and, among those that survived, it was a difficult period that required them to reassess their operations. Software developed for the banking industry during this period reflected the contradictions of an industry in transition. Some banks tried to maintain their traditional values and operating procedures in their system design requirements. However, some software developers found that changes in the banking environment and their own software market required them to consider different values and methods of service delivery in their designs for new systems. A brief account of the industry’s evolution with computer systems sets the stage for the cases presented in this chapter. Banks are large users of computer systems and were among the first large commercial institutions to use computers. Design of banking systems has been affected by changes in technology, external regulation, competition, and the labor market. These changes have combined to define the operational objectives of new computer system designs. During the 1950s and 1960s, banks installed large mainframe systems for back office transaction processing, such as account updating, on a batch system mode. By the 1970s large banks had invested extensively in mainframe computer systems and smaller banks were beginning to adopt computer systems as prices dropped and smaller computers became more powerful. In both large and small banks, computer applications were increasingly introduced to support front office transactions of tellers and customer service representatives in branch offices. Because these systems make data instantly available for a variety of steps in processing transactions, they integrate people throughout the banking organization.