Lloyds on-site technology deemed “not fit for purpose” in leaked video

A senior Lloyds banker has warned its existing on-site technology is “not fit for purpose” during a recorded internal meeting acquired by the Mail on Sunday. This technology holds the vast majority of the bank’s data and services.
Nick Williams, group transformation director at Lloyds, was answering employee questions during the call. Mail on Sunday reported that Lloyds have an internal project codenamed Voyager, tasked with updating its older technology on the cloud.
In the video, Williams can be heard commenting on their ‘on-premise’ software(software not on the cloud), stating: “The bottom line is our prem [premises] capability today is not fit for purpose.
“So we’ve got to sort that problem out as well. We do need to move them forwards. The age of our estate is a real concern.”
He further commented that “99%” of Lloyds’ data and services is hosted on the bank’s own servers. However, a source close to the bank reports that Lloyds technology is still robust, reporting one of the lowest levels of outages.
Williams continued: “To move forwards and progressively modernise and simplify what we’re doing, we’ve got to move on to a more modern architecture. That’s not just a case of let’s go and buy new hardware. Quite a lot of the reasons why we’re still stuck on the ageing infrastructure is because the applications won’t work on new hardware, so it’s very much a collective effort.”
When Charlie Nunn took the position as CEO of Lloyds last year, technology was a key reason behind his appointment. Nunn is expected to reveal a new strategy for the bank in February, along with their annual results. This will likely include a technological upgrade.
Mark Brown, general secretary of trade union BTU, said: “Given the billions the bank’s invested in IT over the years, for a senior executive to be forced to admit that the bank’s current on premises IT infrastructure ‘is not fit for purpose’ is both astonishing and deeply worrying. But he should be commended for his honesty. The question Mr Nunn needs to answer is how much money is the group prepared to invest to make its IT infrastructure fit for purpose?”
Lloyds commented: “We continue to modernise our technology infrastructure in order to retain our leading UK customer position and our cost leadership in an increasingly competitive operating environment. This aims to deliver increased agility and responsiveness to customer trends, while supporting our broader strategic priorities around customer services and products and operational efficiency.”