Martina Madali, Arena Holdings

Financial services institutions, banks in particular, have among the largest IT budgets of all industries because any downtime will affect their bottom line, not to mention their reputation. But no matter the size of the spend, one participant in this gathering of technologists invoked the saying attributed to US aerospace engineer Edward Murphy Jr, who had it that if anything that can go wrong, it will go wrong. Part of the challenge is that banks have vast IT systems, and it’s hard to spot a point of failure. Absa and Capitec, as well as Airlink, could hardly be blamed for the disruption to their systems by the Crowd- Strike incident in July last year; they joined tens of thousands of firms worldwide that were affected by a seemingly innocuous software update. In December 2024, it was Standard Bank’s turn for some downtime, as customers flooded social media reporting issues with its app and internet platform. As is customary, the bank said technicians were working to resolve the issue, and that it regretted the inconvenience.

Masebolelo Gaeganelwe, CIO, Safcol, says her personal bank, which she diplomatically doesn’t name, does maintenance every day between 2am and 3am. “I cannot log onto that app. What does non-stop banking, or zero-downtime, mean?”