No South African financial institution sees itself as a leader in developing and instituting emerging technologies, but these institutions are inclined to downplay their innovation, says Kimberly Harris, Gartner director.
Speaking at the Gartner Symposium ITXPO in Cape Town yesterday, Harris said Gartner had questioned all of the country`s top financial institutions about their innovation, what was seen as important in terms of IT development and other issues.
"According to them, none of the institutions can be categorised as 'type A` innovators - those companies that are at the forefront of introducing new technologies. Ninety percent say they fall in the second set of introducing new technologies at a more conservative rate, while the remainder are industry laggards and only do so as a survival measure."
Harris said visits showed that many of the institutions were more innovative than they gave themselves credit for. "Some of the projects they are implementing are extremely innovative and are ahead of their peers in the US and UK."
The first to market with new technologies doesn`t always become the market leader, she said, and those companies that adopt a more conservative approach often benefit from the leader`s mistakes.
"But the downside is that without those companies willing to take the risk of introducing new technologies, the whole industry may suffer. But again, this has helped SA institutions to avoid fiascos such as the CRM call centre issue in the UK."
Some innovative technologies that financial institutions could introduce are not necessarily "new", but concepts that were introduced about 10 years ago, but are now maturing.
"First National Bank`s introduction of retinal scanning to protect pension payouts in KwaZulu- Natal in the 1990s did not take off as well as it could have because of social aversion to it and the technology was not ready. But now it is becoming more acceptable," Harris said.
Gartner`s research included 10 of the country`s top 12 financial institutions, although they were not named. The questions put to them were the same as those asked of chief information officers of global companies and with few exceptions the responses were the same.
"There were some anomalies between the SA companies and their global peers. For instance, when asked about Web services, many companies replied that they had Web sites, but that is not what defines a 'Web service`."
SA companies also rated security and privacy concerns higher than their global counterparts, placing these issues at number three on their list of importance, while the international companies placed them at number 10.
Reducing the cost of IT services was the most important concern for global and SA institutions.
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