Banking giant Citi is redoubling efforts to overhaul its sprawling IT infrastructure in a bid to save billions of dollars a year after experiencing early success, according to the Financial Times.
Citi employs an army of some 25,000 developers and expends tens of billions of dollar a year on operations and IT.
Last year CEO Vikram Pandit set his sights on integrating systems as part of plans to bring the business back on track after recording billions of dollars of losses and write-downs.
He signalled his intent to slash jobs and cut costs under an ambitious programme to reverse more than a decade of decentralised IT investment.
At the time, Pandit told the FT: "It is clearly feasible for us to take 10, 15, 20 per cent off our cost base, especially in information technology and operations,."
Subsequently, the bank appointed Marty Lippert chief information officer, tasked with developing a new integrated infrastructure. Lippert made "significant progress" in streamlining and integrating the bank's global operations and technology before quitting in March for personal reasons.
According to the FT, progress has been so good that Citi has increased its IT cost saving targets from an original $3 billion over three years. Citing people close to the situation, the paper says internal projections now target savings of a "multiple of $1 billion" for this year.