Survey: Banks still struggling with compliance

Banks have an extraordinarily large amount of data to keep up with. The regulations at home and abroad--Basel II takes effect in Europe next year--can also be fairly daunting, which makes compliance in general an arduous undertaking. I am not surprised by a recent survey that found the top priority is improving reference data quality and that more IT spending is being thrown at the problem. Straight through processing also seems to be a focus for more companies.

One result of all this is the activity going on in the back office. Processing transactions has always seemed to be a step behind technologically, in part because the volume and complexity keep expanding. Consider corporate actions: Every time a stock splits, dividends are declared, or mergers are announced, a host of reporting and other requirements are triggered for many thousands of customers. Automating all that still seems like a Holy Grail of sorts. There is little talk of Sarbanes-Oxley synergies in this area.

For more on this:
- check out this article about the survey