Financial services industry to bring operations home in 2013

Banks will start to bring a raft of operations back on shore in 2013. In response to having to increase their capital ratios, banks will be assessing every possible avenue in the bid to rein in costs. Onshoring consultancy operations and taking advantage of young, British based talent will be one key way in which financial services companies can cut costs.

Other key trends we think will prevail in 2013 include:

- Banks adopting "smart" regulatory compliance as banks in the EU gear up for Basel III implementation - smart regulatory compliance means being able to deliver business focused change alongside regulatory compliance.

- The increased use of "digital natives": financial services companies will start to realise the impact of using young people who have grown up with technology at the heart of their business technology change programmes, using their innate knowledge of technology to give a unique insight.

- Increased focus on mobile: there has been a sharp increase in the availability of sophisticated mobile technology  this year and in 2013 we expect to see a sharp acceleration in the way banks provide services across mobile to keep pace with other sectors and protect their market share from P2P providers, like PayPal.

- Transformation in the insurance space: as insurance companies follow banks in adoption of mobile services, digital communication and developments in customer service, we predict a sharp rise in innovation in this sector this year as the industry tries to build stronger customer relationships and combat the comparison industry.

- Commoditisation of IT: we predict the increasing acceptance of SaaS and Cloud in 2013, which will continue to position IT as a commodity service for the business. CIOs will increasingly be delivering the IT service whilst the business will start to own the end to end change process.

The financial services industry has continued to recover in 2012, although there have been set backs - banking scandals like Libor fixing, spiralling regulatory requirements and massive legislative changes in the insurance industry. 2013 is looking more positive as banks steady themselves, understand the outlook in terms of regulation and compliance, begin to rebuild their reputations and customer loyalty and get their ducks in a row with regards to systems and infrastructure.