Quote from: threaded on January 28, 2014, 05:43:51 AM

Quote from: TheIrishman on January 28, 2014, 05:10:05 AM

Why do bank IT systems keep failing?

Generally bank systems are very poorly built in a rush with exceptions to architectural advice all over, this is piled on top of older systems equally bad going back to some systems so old they beg staff not to retire and scour ebay for parts.

Bank maintenance is outsourced to the lowest bidder or the ones with the most hair gel. The outsourcers can then only make a profit if there are faults. The result is pretty obvious: the systems develop faults.

It's a lot like jenga: push a bit here, pull a bit there and over it goes and no one quite knows why Wink

. (But the boss buys everyone beers and pizza when it happens 'cause it's just paid everyone's wages for the next few months Cheesy

)

I program for a bank and this is 100% spot on. Another point is that legislation changes in the finance sector are non-negotiable and often code must be upgraded by specific dates set by the government. So this throws a spanner in the works for bug fix and clean-up projects...