Sune Engsig, VP Product at Leapwork
IT failures have plagued the banking industry for several years. From the TSB computer systems meltdown in 2018 costing the bank £330m and causing 80,000 customers to switch to a competitor, to Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland suffering an IT glitch on payday this year with customers’ faster payments and transfers being delayed.
Despite MPs calling for regulators to act, condemning the number of IT failures in the financial services sector as ‘unacceptable,’ the industry continues to let them happen leaving more and more irate customers locked out of their accounts. But with bank branches disappearing fast, customers are now far more reliant on online and mobile banking, so ensuring technology systems function correctly is paramount. When you consider the complex compliance and regulatory setup of banks and other financial institutions, and the fact that they are dealing with incredibly sensitive customer information, those that do experience outages can face irreversible consequences such as loss of customer loyalty, severe reputational damage and regulatory fines.
A critical step in mitigating IT failures is having effective testing capabilities in place to find and fix any errors before new software is rolled out to market or new IT migrations take place. This lowers the risk of software failures and outages occurring after launch. Yet, 70% of software testers in banking and financial services think it’s acceptable to release software that hasn’t been properly tested, so long as it’s patched later, according to research by Leapwork. Furthermore, only 40% think software failures are a big risk to their company. But when the impact of an IT failure is so severe, why do banks still take risks?
Software testing challenges
Despite the swathes of software businesses now rely upon, 85% of software testing is still done manually. When it comes to the banking sector, as these institutions continue to develop new digitised products and services with increasingly sophisticated and customised software, it is clear that manual testing can no longer be the default. It is time-consuming, cannot scale amidst a skills crisis, and leaves companies open to human error.
There is a huge amount of pressure on IT teams to develop and release new software or manage new IT migrations. A critical step on this journey is having effective testing capabilities in place, like test automation, to find and fix any errors and bugs before new software is rolled out to market. This lowers the risk of outages and failures occurring after launch, which can negatively impact a company’s reputation and bottom line.
However, while some organisations recognise the value of automation tools, many continue to rely too heavily on code-dependant tools which, while an improvement on manual testing, are incredibly complicated to use and thus require specific skills and experience to operate. This means they too are impossible to scale, as they often depend upon developer skills.
Skills shortage forcing banks to take risks
Ensuring you undertake proper software testing seems like a no-brainer, but 40% of software goes to market without sufficient testing. The reason why; one in five (21%) of banking and financial services testers say ‘lack of available skilled developers.’ As companies transition from manual to automated testing, which typically requires coding skills, the major global developer skills shortage is creating bottlenecks, increasing costs and delaying project delivery times as development teams try to upskill manual testers, hire new talent or lean on existing developers.
As a result of the skills shortage, only 30% of testers in banking and financial services say they’re using some element of automation (i.e., an automation tool or a combination of manual and automation). In fact, 40% of CEOs across all industries think the fact that their company still relies on manual testing is the main reason why software isn’t tested properly, with 58% of testers in banking and financial services saying ‘underinvestment in test automation’ is the reason sufficient testing does not occur.
Testing issues not on CEOs’ agenda until too late
Across all sectors, 69% of CEOs think it’s acceptable to release software that hasn’t been properly tested, so long as it’s patched later, but 68% of testers claim their teams spend five to 10 days per year patching software. While nearly all testers express concern that insufficiently tested software is going to market, the overwhelming majority (75%) of CEOs say they’re confident their software is tested regularly. These numbers show a huge disconnect between CEOs and testers indicating that testing issues are falling under the radar and not being escalated until it’s too late.
Moving toward an automated future
Banking and financial services have been thought of as slow-moving and lacking innovation in the past. That isn’t the case anymore, as we’ve seen the industry take great strides towards digitalisation in recent years. However, with that digital transformation and integration of software comes outages, the consequences of which mean millions of pounds lost.
UK banks are at high risk of IT failures due to insufficient software testing, and a reliance on manual testing. On the current trajectory, more and more banks will struggle with failures and outages which could cost them a significant amount in financial and reputational damage. To minimise risk, they need to transition from manual to automated testing and explore testing options that don’t require coding skills so it’s easier to hire in talent or upskill existing team members, whether that be testers or everyday business users. Only then can they increase productivity and time to market while decreasing risk and costs.
