Martin Bradbury, UK&I Regional Director, Strategic Accounts, Dynatrace
The UK Treasury’s new Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy outlines how digitalisation will enhance the efficiency of the UK’s wholesale markets. In parallel, the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness strategy champions growth through the adoption of new technologies. It’s clear that digital transformation across the financial sector is accelerating.
However, this wave of innovation brings increasing complexity to IT environments—making system outages and cyber vulnerabilities more likely.
This risk is far from hypothetical: in February 2025, the UK Parliament’s Treasury Committee launched an inquiry into a series of high-profile outages at major UK banks. The inquiry uncovered over 803 hours of unplanned system outages in just two years. This significant government intervention reinforces the urgency for financial services to ensure the reliability and resilience of banking IT systems.
In this new digital landscape, strengthening operational and business resilience is not just best practice, it is a strategic necessity. Banks must analyse past outages, identify recurring vulnerabilities, and implement proactive measures to prevent future mistakes. AI-powered observability, when used in tandem with automated root cause analysis using real user data, can pinpoint affected customers and prevent small issues from spiralling into major outages.
Why bank outages are increasing
The financial industry has undergone rapid digital transformation, with banks continuously introducing new technology products and services. While this innovation has enhanced customer experiences, it has also resulted in highly complex IT environments that are increasingly difficult to manage.
The competitive landscape only adds more pressure. Consumer expectations are higher than ever, driven by the rise of digital-first banks that set a new benchmark for seamless, always-available experiences. Unlike traditional banks, these newer entrants are digitally native, allowing them to be more agile. In contrast, many established banks still rely on legacy systems and on-premise technology, making it more challenging to match the speed and flexibility of their digital-first competitors. To stay ahead in the industry, traditional banks are racing to develop new services, further complicating their IT environments and increasing the risk of disruptions.
This added complexity is at the heart of the rise in outages. Banks operate across a mix of cloud platforms, legacy systems, and digital services, creating intricate technology ecosystems. Many institutions focus on parts of their technology stack, often lacking full visibility into the end-to-end customer experience. Even a minor miscalculation in a software update can introduce single points of failure, causing widespread outages.
To mitigate these challenges, banks have adopted monitoring tools to gain visibility into their systems and reduce outages. However, many rely on traditional monitoring solutions that struggle to track the full scope of modern IT ecosystems. Without a more advanced, proactive approach, banks remain vulnerable to service failures that impact both their customers and reputation.
Resilient banks for a digital-first future
To enhance resilience and build a robust digital infrastructure, banks must move beyond a reactive approach to IT outages. Banks need continuous insights into system health, user experience, and third-party dependencies to mitigate risks and respond swiftly to disruptions. Advanced AI-powered observability systems, combining automated root cause analysis with real user data, can help identify affected customers and deliver targeted support before minor issues escalate into widespread outages.
At the same time, financial institutions must balance innovation with stability. Speed to market is crucial, but without strong processes and real-time monitoring, rapid change becomes a major instigator of outages. The challenge is finding the middle ground between agility and the process discipline banks have historically relied on – ensuring new features enhance the customer experience without compromising resilience.
However, resilience extends to the third-party providers that banks rely on. A shift to a customer-centric view of resilience is essential. Instead of just monitoring internal infrastructure, banks must track real customer journeys – payments, loan applications, and digital transactions – to detect performance degradation in real-time.
The road to resilience
The UK government’s push for digitalisation demands robust, resilient digital systems that can meet the growing complexity of IT infrastructure. For financial institutions, resilience is no longer just a technical necessity; it’s a competitive differentiator. Those that can consistently deliver reliable services will gain customer trust and market share.
While eliminating outages entirely is unrealistic given the complexity of modern banking IT environments, enhancing visibility and resilience can significantly mitigate their impact and risk. By prioritising these strategies, banks can strengthen their operational stability and ensure a more reliable experience for their customers.
Future-proofing the financial sector: resilience in the digital age
Martin Bradbury, UK&I Regional Director, Strategic Accounts, Dynatrace
The UK Treasury’s new Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy outlines how digitalisation will enhance the efficiency of the UK’s wholesale markets. In parallel, the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness strategy champions growth through the adoption of new technologies. It’s clear that digital transformation across the financial sector is accelerating.
However, this wave of innovation brings increasing complexity to IT environments—making system outages and cyber vulnerabilities more likely.
This risk is far from hypothetical: in February 2025, the UK Parliament’s Treasury Committee launched an inquiry into a series of high-profile outages at major UK banks. The inquiry uncovered over 803 hours of unplanned system outages in just two years. This significant government intervention reinforces the urgency for financial services to ensure the reliability and resilience of banking IT systems.
In this new digital landscape, strengthening operational and business resilience is not just best practice, it is a strategic necessity. Banks must analyse past outages, identify recurring vulnerabilities, and implement proactive measures to prevent future mistakes. AI-powered observability, when used in tandem with automated root cause analysis using real user data, can pinpoint affected customers and prevent small issues from spiralling into major outages.
Why bank outages are increasing
The financial industry has undergone rapid digital transformation, with banks continuously introducing new technology products and services. While this innovation has enhanced customer experiences, it has also resulted in highly complex IT environments that are increasingly difficult to manage.
The competitive landscape only adds more pressure. Consumer expectations are higher than ever, driven by the rise of digital-first banks that set a new benchmark for seamless, always-available experiences. Unlike traditional banks, these newer entrants are digitally native, allowing them to be more agile. In contrast, many established banks still rely on legacy systems and on-premise technology, making it more challenging to match the speed and flexibility of their digital-first competitors. To stay ahead in the industry, traditional banks are racing to develop new services, further complicating their IT environments and increasing the risk of disruptions.
This added complexity is at the heart of the rise in outages. Banks operate across a mix of cloud platforms, legacy systems, and digital services, creating intricate technology ecosystems. Many institutions focus on parts of their technology stack, often lacking full visibility into the end-to-end customer experience. Even a minor miscalculation in a software update can introduce single points of failure, causing widespread outages.
To mitigate these challenges, banks have adopted monitoring tools to gain visibility into their systems and reduce outages. However, many rely on traditional monitoring solutions that struggle to track the full scope of modern IT ecosystems. Without a more advanced, proactive approach, banks remain vulnerable to service failures that impact both their customers and reputation.
Resilient banks for a digital-first future
To enhance resilience and build a robust digital infrastructure, banks must move beyond a reactive approach to IT outages. Banks need continuous insights into system health, user experience, and third-party dependencies to mitigate risks and respond swiftly to disruptions. Advanced AI-powered observability systems, combining automated root cause analysis with real user data, can help identify affected customers and deliver targeted support before minor issues escalate into widespread outages.
At the same time, financial institutions must balance innovation with stability. Speed to market is crucial, but without strong processes and real-time monitoring, rapid change becomes a major instigator of outages. The challenge is finding the middle ground between agility and the process discipline banks have historically relied on – ensuring new features enhance the customer experience without compromising resilience.
However, resilience extends to the third-party providers that banks rely on. A shift to a customer-centric view of resilience is essential. Instead of just monitoring internal infrastructure, banks must track real customer journeys – payments, loan applications, and digital transactions – to detect performance degradation in real-time.
The road to resilience
The UK government’s push for digitalisation demands robust, resilient digital systems that can meet the growing complexity of IT infrastructure. For financial institutions, resilience is no longer just a technical necessity; it’s a competitive differentiator. Those that can consistently deliver reliable services will gain customer trust and market share.
While eliminating outages entirely is unrealistic given the complexity of modern banking IT environments, enhancing visibility and resilience can significantly mitigate their impact and risk. By prioritising these strategies, banks can strengthen their operational stability and ensure a more reliable experience for their customers.
