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Agreed, in that specific context.

Hi Alex, thanks for your comment. I do not agree with "true potential of FinTech is in the TECH part of it". Banks wasted enough money on tech for the sake of tech, increased their IT costs, charged customers more for poorer service etc. FinTech winners are working backwards from what customers *really* want or would like, and use just the right bit of technology magic to deliver that.

Thanks for your comments Nikhil and Ketharaman! Would you say that package vendors realize this disconnect (between banks' lack of CapEx and their traditional upfront licensing/AMC model and have started to do something about it?

You are right Ketharaman, this is indeed the situation in most banks, and what I am calling for is planning in advance so that compliance is not only a bitter pill to swallow but is used for transformation as well. I would, however, limit this argument to larger compliance programs which have significant impact across the IT landscape of the business area e.g. Front Office in case of MiFID, Payments/Core Banking in case of SEPA etc.

Ketharaman, thanks for your comment. I agree, but the point is that "traditional banks" in tough times are increasingly demanding their IT to deliver more for less. With cost cuts and compliance requirements squeezing out innovation/change-the-bank budgets, IT needs a start-up mindset to justify this spend.

Enrico, interesting adaptation of the roadmap to TB business! A couple of thoughts- is "value creation" only possible via integration of Payments, Treasury etc.? How about using the customer information around payments to provide value-addes services or cross-selling other bank products- doesn't that qualify as value add? Also, for the last step - revenue generation- consider banks generating revenues through offering payments processing as a (white-labeled) service to other banks- wouldn't that also be revenue generation?

Craig, interesting post; I am keen to understand the split of these 200 banks who replaced their payment systems in 2011, in particular how many in Europe. 2012 could certainly be the year of payments transformation in Europe given SEPA will drive at least large and medium banks to a decision to build/buy/outsource.