Why financial institutions are losing the talent war for developers

A global survey of 1,000 bank and financial firm executives found that the biggest concern for many financial institutions is access to skilled developers. In fact, 97% of respondents said the higher developers was a priority for them, with 72% seeing developers as directly impacting sales efforts. This leads to the question: why are financial institutions lagging behind in attracting skilled developers? The answer to this question seems to be within the financial institutions themselves as the survey suggests that financial institutions aren’t innovative enough to attract top developer talent. Moreover, many feel that developers are largely considered as “second-class citizens” within the banking world, despite “digital” being a priority.

To overcome this, financial institutions must truly give a high priority to developers by developing hiring and talent development plans for them. As part of this, they must work to ensure an innovative and attractive work environment that provides challenges that appeal to developers. This can be accomplished by pushing boundaries and ensuring that financial institutions are progressing in line with the same (or similar) global trends that the tech community is. But to really get ahead, financial institutions need a radical makeover in their fundamental approach by stopping to think of themselves as a financial institution and starting to think of themselves as a tech company with a banking license.