Mpho Moseki, Standard Bank

One might almost feel sorry for the banker’s lot: systems need to be up all the time and most of the big retail institutions are all fighting for the same customers. But the country’s banks are in good shape, and as a PwC report says, despite slow growth conditions and a challenging macroeconomic environment, local banks have shown their solid operating foundations.

As for uptime, younger, or “challenger”, banks have the advantage because they’re not encumbered by old code or equipment, often referred to derisively as “legacy” systems. One of the potential problems here is that any attempt at modernisation could mean a loss of system functionality. And anecdotally, this happens more often than one would think. The adoption of cloud, and containerisation, can offer efficiencies, but for risk-averse organisations, there are going to be lengthy periods of testing.