Empowering digital transformation in banking

With examples of more than a 20 percent decrease in branches over the past ten years at large North American banks, it’s no wonder that 42 percent of banks are well on their way to having digital become the primary distribution channel. In fact, 92 percent of global banks surveyed plan to begin their transformation to digital as the primary distribution channel in 2019.

Given efforts are underway, many banks are now wondering how to make this shift more efficient, repeatable, and even automated. Red Hat vice president and chief technology officer, Chris Wright, recently provided insights and described how banks are using technology to move beyond surviving digitization, instead creating environments that enable continual digital innovation.

Banks that are more agile are those that create a culture that embraces ongoing change. The fluidity to quickly adapt to the changing tides of customer demands requires open banking - the means by which banks engage in an open ecosystem to build new services - with both customers and partners. A big part of open banking is optimally using technology to build microservices rather than monolithic applications. Microservices are successfully crafted in an environment that permits reuse of these services as building blocks for the next app.

Simply put, “it’s all about the app,” according to Chris Wright, and creating apps that can be quickly developed and seamlessly deployed. Any-app, any-where can be successful when infrastructure software is consistent across platforms, eliminating brittle code that generates friction between cloud apps, virtualized apps, or apps held behind firewalls.

Banks look to reduce this friction because it slows the ability to respond, reuse, and re-invent apps as needed. A frictionless environment impacts developers using services to expedite app builds, and also cloud operators, who can automate operations across hybrid cloud environments. Perhaps most importantly a frictionless environment benefits consumers, who are presented with targeted and responsive apps because of optimized workload compute.

To get there, technology innovation trends are heavily relying on ways to separate app logic from everything else. In perpetual pursuit of excellence, organizations need to consider the interwoven dependencies of all digital technology audiences, namely:

• Consumers - who are demanding more targeted, online experiences
• IT Operations - who need more efficient ways to handle the increasing diversity of apps and their workloads
• Developers - who want to continuously push the envelope for competitive differentiation

The good news is that you aren’t alone in this journey. Open source is the place where technology innovation is happening. Whether that’s serverless architecture, microservices, AI, blockchain, or other emerging uses, you can catch the waves of innovation rather than making your own. Tune in to Chris Wright’s “Digital Empowerment in Banking” e-event, now available on demand, to learn more.