It's rare for all parties in a given industry to agree on something, but if the Ovum report, "The Critical Role for Cloud in the Transformation of Retail Banks" is to be believed, there is universal agreement (well, almost) that SaaS is the big transformer retail banking has been waiting for. Only the adoption timescales remain murkier. I waded into the Ovum research with interest. Here's what I found.

Over 35% of respondents expect SaaS to have a transformative effect on their organisation within the next 12 months. Over the next 12 to 24 months, the impact of SaaS is expected to continue to build, with more than 45% of banks anticipating significant change during this period. And in three to five years, the vast majority of respondents believe that SaaS will have a major impact on both their organisation and the industry as a whole.

So it seems we have a few years to go before reaching total adoption, but even SaaS sceptics have come to realise its significance.

Yet what exactly is the impact expected to be? Respondents were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed with a number of statements. The ability to respond more quickly to market opportunities achieved the highest level of agreement. Interestingly, there was also high agreement that SaaS is welcomed by IT functions who don't see it as a threat to their jobs.

There's also an industry-wide shake-up on the retail banking horizon as agile technology empowers smaller players with access to new capabilities. Exciting times ahead.

The Ovum report, "The Critical Role for Cloud in the Transformation of Retail Banks," can be downloaded here.