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Oracle Corp. is rolling out a data warehouse for banks that tests both exposure to risk and compliance across business lines.
February 10 -
Heightened regulation is forcing more bank buyers to overhaul their entire computer platform as regulators zero in on a greater need for compliance.
November 21
Tuesday was a giddy day in New York City, with Gotham nearly shut down for much of the morning by the New York Giants' Super Bowl victory parade.
But Mark Hurd, president of Oracle Corp., brought bankers down to earth during a breakfast forum for financial services executives in Midtown.
"I have great news for those of you in the financial services arena — you are not that efficient, so you have a lot of opportunity," Hurd said with a heavy dose of irony.
For the next few minutes, Hurd made his case using a Powerpoint presentation: A big-bank customer of Oracle, which he did not name, has an annual budget of $13 billion for research and development in information technology — almost as much as the combined spending ($14 billion) of IBM, Oracle and Microsoft.
What does this big bank get in return? Software applications that are on average 15 to 20 years old, and an infrastructure that is about a decade old.
"Most of those applications are old and homegrown, and most of the people who developed them are gone, and most [of the apps] are in maintenance mode and hard to evolve and support," Hurd said. He mentioned another bank customer with a comparable R&D budget that covers 9,000 individual applications.
"These costs on a long-term basis are nonsustainable," Hurd said.
