The future of computers in financial institutions

Abstract

An examination of the development of computer usage in financial institutions reveals two reasons for this use. First, the pressure of growth e.g. cheque clearing, where irrespective of cost justification, business volumes were growing at such a rate that it would have been impossible to exist without automation. Secondly, those uses which were cost justified, usually in saving labour but which were constrained in their implementation by the answers to the justification equation e.g. centralized accounting systems in banks and building societies. Only so much was implemented because the technology was relatively expensive. More recently, however, technology has advanced in power, complexity and price-performance terms to the point where the user is no longer constrained either by the capability of the system to carry out the task, or by the expense of the system in relation to the cost of the job as currently performed. © 1979.