Why whittling down trading platforms is good news for IT change managers
Investment banks are looking to whittle down the number of trading platforms they run. In the long term, this might not be great news for technologists working on developing these systems, but the streamlining process is providing a lot of project work for those with change management expertise.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is planning to run just one trading platform (down from its current number of more than 50); JP Morgan is aiming to save $300m a year by slashing its trading platforms, and Deutsche Bank unveiled in its investor workshop that it's aiming to cut its front office risk systems from 55 to 4 by 2013.
Why are banks doing this? Mike Thrower, director of banking sales at Wall Street Systems says it's because they're "urgently working towards greater efficiency, having invested for years in vast, complex treasury and capital markets services."
The good news from an employment perspective is that investment banks are increasingly recruiting infrastructure experts to carry out this consolidation work.
"These rationalisation projects are hugely complex and require those with deep dive infrastructure knowledge to lead them as well as more junior hires to carry out the work," says Paul Bennie, director of IT in finance headhunters Bennie MacLean. "While it's essentially a change management role, it's very specialist."
Working in change positions within financial services IT has been a good place to be over the last three years. Various banks have been integrating systems because of various mergers - RBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Lloyds Banking Group to name a few - and this work has been showing some signs of drying up recently.
However, the need to reduce trading platform numbers has seen a resurgence in these types of roles.
"There's a whole range of new project manager and business analyst roles related to the consolidation of trading platforms," says one financial technology headhunter. "It's also benefitting vendors and consultants who are being lifted in by some of the smaller banks."
