Tag: IT Outlook

21 Feb 2019
Identifying Top Priorities for 2019 - IT Outlook Survey

3 Top Challenges from the 2019 IT Outlook for Community Banking

Identifying Top Priorities for 2019 - IT Outlook Survey

For the third consecutive year, we surveyed community banks and credit unions to gain a better understanding of their current IT situation, top IT priorities and challenges, security and compliance issues as well as future technology investments on the horizon. Our third annual report, “2019 IT Outlook for Community Banking,” analyzes survey feedback from approximately 164 respondents representing a range of community banks and credit unions across the U.S. with asset sizes from less than $100 million to more than $1 billion.

This report is designed to offer community banks and credit unions with valuable peer data that can provide guidance for key IT, compliance and security decisions in 2019 and beyond. The data reinforces that community financial institutions continue to recognize the importance of using technology in the current banking environment and remain committed to investing in new technologies and services as needs evolve. However, they continue to face certain challenges, often related to technology, heading into 2019.

Here are some key IT challenges and trends from the survey results:

Information Security Continues to be the Top Challenge

According to 43% of survey respondents, information security continues to be a top challenge. Falling victim to security breaches and associated attacks is very costly for community banks and credit unions, both from a financial and reputational standpoint. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the global cost of cybercrime damages will hit $6 trillion annually by 2021. This includes damage and destruction of data, theft of personal and financial data, and disruption to the normal business operations, among others. In addition, as the number of security threats continues to increase in the financial services industry, regulators are taking a closer look at financial institutions’ policies and procedures to ensure that they can effectively safeguard confidential and non-public information. All of this has led to 57% of respondents planning to strengthen and increase budgets for IT security solutions in 2019.

Personnel Expertise and Resources Becoming a Greater Concern

According to 42% of respondents, having the right personnel resources is now a top challenge for their financial institution. Managing an IT network is a very demanding responsibility. An IT administrator needs to truly understand the increasing complexity of IT operations, continuously changing regulatory requirements, FFIEC compliance guidelines, and evolving security threats. However, many community banks and credit unions are often located in areas that lack the qualified personnel resources to efficiently manage these responsibilities, making it financially challenging for them to employ the seasoned IT technology team required. This trend is encouraging community financial institutions to augment their IT departments with outsourced service providers who are able to help them navigate technology, security, and compliance required today.

Keeping Up With Changing Customer Expectations Continues to be a Challenge

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Approximately 42% of survey respondents claim that keeping up with changing customer expectations is their greatest challenge moving into the New Year. The advancement of technology, online banking services, compliance and regulatory requirements plus the growing demand from customers to have 24/7 access to their financial lives, have made the business of banking more challenging. This challenge has led to many institutions making additional technology investments in customer satisfaction or solutions to better meet market needs. According to 55% of survey respondents, this is the main reason or factor for making technology investments in the coming year. Customer satisfaction has become increasingly important and delivering a great customer experience is what gives banks and credit unions a competitive advantage.

Other areas of survey respondents mentioned as challenges include automating manual processes, managing budget restraints, eliminating redundant technology, remaining compliant with changing regulations, reporting and exam preparation, disaster preparedness, and providing secure mobile technology. This is the first year mobile technology was mentioned, but it is no surprise, as more and more consumers are turning to their mobile phones for basic banking tasks, such as depositing checks, checking their balances, and transferring money between accounts.

To gain more insights into the key challenges, goals and opportunities facing banks and credit unions today, please download the full report here.

26 Nov 2018
Identifying Top Priorities for 2019 - IT Outlook Survey

Identifying Top Priorities for 2019: Participate In Safe Systems’ Annual IT Outlook Survey for Banks and Credit Unions

Identifying Top Priorities for 2019 - IT Outlook SurveyWe want to hear from you for our annual industry report examining how community banks and credit unions plan to meet their IT, compliance and security needs in 2019.

To better understand banks’ and credit unions’ current IT situation, we have been surveying community banks and credit unions for the last 3 years. Our previous reports highlighted top IT priorities, IT challenges, security concerns and compliance issues, as well as what technologies and investments banks and credit unions plan to leverage in the coming year. We share the information gathered by publishing a white paper; last year’s was “2018 IT Outlook for Community Banks and Credit Unions.” The report is designed to provide community banks and credit unions with valuable peer data that can provide guidance for key IT, compliance and security decisions.

Looking back on 2018, some of the trends we saw included:

  1. Cybersecurity and Information Security Continue to Challenge Banks and Credit Unions
  2. Cybersecurity was the greatest security challenge banks and credit unions foresaw for the year ahead and information security was also a top challenge.

  3. Compliance Continues to be a Challenge
  4. Managing strict, ever-changing government regulations and guidelines is the greatest IT compliance challenge, which has led to the increasing trend of outsourcing compliance needs.

  5. Outsourcing Remains Beneficial and Important for Smaller Institutions
  6. With limited internal resources and expertise, community financial institutions continue to augment their IT departments with outsourced service providers who are able to help them navigate the IT changes and meet examiner expectations.

  7. Technology Investment Continues
  8. Community financial institutions continue to recognize the need for investing in new technologies and services.

  9. Both Community Banks and Credit Unions Have the Same Pain Points
  10. The results indicated that both credit unions and community banks experience many of the same issues related to compliance, IT challenges and staffing constraints.

Other areas the survey focuses on include IT management issues, audit and exam preparation, additional technology challenges, vendor management, business continuity planning, reasons for change and implementation of new services and cloud usage.

We hope you will participate in the 2019 IT Outlook by taking our survey. By completing the survey, you will gain access to this comprehensive year-end report. Your anonymous responses will be aggregated to provide detailed graphs, charts and plenty of insight amongst your peers in the community financial industry.

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04 Apr 2018
Six Costs to Consider When Implementing New Bank Technology

Six Costs to Consider When Implementing New Bank Technology

Six Costs to Consider When Implementing New Bank Technology

Community banks and credit unions remain committed to investing in new technologies and services as needs evolve. In fact, according to the 2018 Community Bank and Credit Union Information Technology Outlook survey, nearly 80 percent of community bank survey respondents claim their technology spending has increased in the past 18 months, and 88 percent of credit unions claim their technology spending has increased in the same time period.

Community financial institutions depend on their IT network infrastructure and technology solutions for nearly all functions including managing data, network monitoring, online banking services, ATM services, teller functions, email, regulatory and compliance issues and security monitoring. This means it is crucial that all solutions work together efficiently. For this to happen, financial institutions must continue to update their hardware and software and invest in new resources or services to enhance their financial institution and better serve their customers.

Cost Considerations

Here are six costs to consider before purchasing new technology solutions for your financial institution.

  1. Physical Hardware — Hardware costs can include the initial hardware price or lease costs of the actual IT equipment for computers, laptops, servers or other network hardware.

  2. Software — This includes purchasing software solutions, licensing and subscriptions. This can be costly depending on how many users are involved. The costs can also vary depending on if it’s a one-time purchase or a cloud-based system with a set annual fee.
  3. Operational — This cost considers the impact to the users. For example, solutions that improve efficiency, enable integration, automation, improve decision making, and better collaboration allow bank staff to reduce manual tasks and focus on more revenue-generating activities.
  4. Education and Training — Implementing new technology solutions usually requires some training and education for the end-user. If you are replacing or updating a solution that works in the same way as your current system, little training may be required. However, more complex systems or upgrades can require significant training which can be costly.
  5. Support — Support and maintenance are often underestimated when evaluating new banking products and services. As technology changes and evolves, there are often upgrades to the software or hardware that financial institutions must be aware of. Ongoing costs related to security upgrades, software updates, computer repair and general support are a necessity to owning and utilizing technology.
  6. Warranty — Purchasing an extended warranty or service contract that covers damage is often recommended and needs to be included in the total cost of ownership. The extended warranty will often cover repair or replacement of a device or solution due to mishaps for a longer time than the manufacturers’ warranties.

No technology lasts forever. New systems, hardware and techniques are constantly being developed to automate processes, increase efficiency and improve the overall organization so understanding the costs associated with implementing new solutions is imperative. Careful planning, evaluation and preparation will result in successful technological implementations.




White Paper Download

2018 Community Bank IT Outlook

Primary Research and Analysis of Your IT Priorities in 2018
White Paper Download

07 Feb 2018
2018 IT Outlook

5 Highlights from 2018 Community Bank and Credit Union Information Technology Outlook Survey

2018 IT Outlook

In our second annual IT outlook report, we surveyed community banks and credit unions to better understand their current IT situations, top IT priorities and challenges, security and compliance issues and to get an idea of key technologies and investments they plan to make in the year ahead. The data collected in our 2018 report analyzes survey feedback on 54 questions from approximately 110 respondents representing a range of community banks and credit unions across the country with asset sizes from $100 million to more than $1 billion.

One big difference to note is this year marks the first time that the survey includes responses from credit unions. The survey shows that both credit unions and community banks are experiencing many of the same issues related to compliance, IT challenges and staffing constraints. 


Five highlights from the 2018 Community Bank and Credit Union Information Technology Outlook reveal the following:

  1. Cybersecurity and Information Security Continue to Challenge Financial Institutions
  2. Cybersecurity remains the greatest security challenge banks and credit unions foresee for the year ahead according to 80% of survey respondents. Information Security continues to be a top challenge for community financial institutions, according to 81% of survey respondents, which has led to 74% of survey respondents claiming they have increased their IT-related security spending in the past 18 months.

  3. Compliance Continues to be “Top of Mind”

  4. Managing strict, ever-changing government regulations and guidelines is the greatest IT compliance challenge today for 32% of survey respondents. This has led approximately 40% of respondents to outsource their compliance needs. In addition, preparing for an exam has become a time consuming task as agencies are requesting more and more documents and reports before the exam even begins. According to survey results, approximately 60% of respondents have been asked to prepare more than 40 items for each exam or audit.

  5. IT Staffing Struggles Continue
  6. For the second consecutive year, personnel resource restraints and in-house expertise are cited as significant pain points for many financial institutions. According to the survey, approximately 31% of respondents have only one employee in their IT department and 26% have just two IT employees, emphasizing that many community banks and credit union’s IT departments continue to be understaffed.

  7. Outsourcing Continues to be Beneficial
  8. With limited internal resources and expertise, community financial institutions continue to augment their IT departments with outsourced service providers who are able to help them navigate the IT changes and meet examiner expectations. According to survey results, 76% of respondents outsource the management of their IT network to a technology service provider. 86% of bank and credit union respondents outsource their security monitoring, given the increase in security breaches the industry has seen this past year.

  9. Technology Investment Continues
  10. Community financial institutions continue to recognize the need for investing in new technologies and services. Nearly 81% of survey respondents claim their technology spending has increased in the past 18 months.

Other areas the survey focused on include IT management issues, audit and exam preparation, additional technology challenges, vendor management, business continuity planning, reasons for change and implementation of new services and cloud usage. The complete report provides executives with peer-to-peer information to better understand the current IT environment within community banks and credit unions nationwide, while also helping improve decision making within their own institution in 2018 and beyond.

To gain more insights into the key challenges, goals and opportunities facing community financial institutions today, please download the full report here.




White Paper Download

2018 Community Bank IT Outlook

Primary Research and Analysis of Your IT Priorities in 2018
White Paper Download