Lloyds Banking Share Discussion Threads

[alphorn] 17/7/2020 08:32

freddie - we spoke yesterday about the reporting on Macron. Here is the Express - "Desperate Macron pins presidency on £90bn EU bailout as truth about bumper package emerges".
......and so it goes on. The Express is in a world of its own.

[freddie01] 17/7/2020 08:30

‘Improving Customer Service through Cloud Migration’ Webinar



Lloyds Banking Group have recently been undertaking a modernisation journey, switching to digital, cloud-based systems. Along this journey, they have used Pegasystems to assist them – 49 applications supporting a variety of customer journeys across areas like fraud, FATCA/CRS, disputes, and credit card inquiries. Pega has been able to aid Lloyds in making this change, despite the challenges that COVID-19 has thrown their way.
Last week, they hosted a webinar, in which some key members of their team discussed in depth the journey that they’ve been undertaking, and how migrating to the cloud created an opportunity to improve their customer and staff outcomes, as well as simplifying its estate and reducing technology debt.

The webinar was hosted by Dom Gregson, Marketing Director at Pegasystems, and featured 3 panelists: Luke Rimmer & Steve Keating from Lloyds Banking Group, and Dave Ray from Pegasystems.

The setup was Dave, Account Director at Pegasystems, posing questions for Luke & Steve to talk through, followed by a short Q & A at the end.

Pega, Lloyds Banking Group & Moving to the Cloud
Steve Keating, Head of CoE and Shaping, began the discussion by illustrating the context, size & scale of Core Platforms at Lloyds Banking Group, “Core platform sits in engineering which is in the CTO element of group transformation we’re a horizontal that’s supports all the 4 technical directorates which is retail Insurance commercial and Enterprise.” He then illustrated how the exact size of their team, between the different labs, can fluctuate according to demand, growing from around 80-90 staff members, up to 500-650. Steve himself heads up the Centre of Excellence (CoE) within Lloyds Banking Group, that forms a part of this structure, along with the shaping function and their lab services.

Luke Rimmer, the Shaping Lead for their Core Platforms, then took the lead to illustrate how exactly the above team uses Pega within Lloyds Group. He explained that they have 49 custom-built applications which are hosted on-prem and 1 out-of-the-box application – their smart disputes application – which is hosted on the Pega Cloud.

In terms of their on-prem applications, they had 35 hosted on one, very large, Enterprise instance. Luke explained they are currently in the process of upgrading these systems from Pega 6.2 to Pega 7.0, but due to the number of different applications, it’s not an easy process. Luke described it as being “very expensive and time-consuming […] the pace of change is slower than we’d like it to be really, we don’t [currently] have the benefits of cloud.”

Therefore, their desire would be to utilise Pega Cloud in an ever-increasing way. Luke explained that, fortunately, this desire to move services to the cloud chimed in with the overall banking group, “the bank’s strategy is to move things away from on-premise and to to a cloud mode of operating we call our FMO, our Future Mode of Operating.” So that group strategy coincided quite nicely with the Core Platform’s desire to transform and modernise their Pega implementation.

Convincing the Bank to make the move to the Cloud
Making the move to cloud-based systems isn’t a small task, especially in a large banking group such as Lloyds. For it to go ahead, all the major decision-makers would have to be satisfied that it was truly worth it. Luke addressed how their team went about making their case. This case was made up of 3 compelling factors – the cost of ownership, the business value, and future technologies – all of which stood to benefit if this migration went ahead.

So firstly, the Cost of Ownership argument. Luke explained that it was just a matter of setting out the As Was costs, and comparing them to the To Be costs, and illustrating the savings to be made. For instance, whilst their may be significant upgrade and maintenance costs, he described that, “there are lots of areas where our costs would come down such as our underlying infrastructure and and our future costs are going to be significantly cheaper as many expensive processes would now be owned by Pega systems.” Luke also pointed out the benefits of all of this happening on in an evergreen state, meaning that “the platform will constantly be upgrading, we wouldn’t have to go through these very slow changes.”

Secondly, in Luke’s opinion, there was “a huge amount of business value to be had.” The example that he used in this instance, was their smart disputes application, and their fraud application. By taking these two separate on-prem services, and moving them to the cloud, they would be able to host them together. The potential result? According to Luke, “there’s going to be about a 30-second saving on the average handling time for each call. I think we have about 500,000 cases a month, so that’s an enormous operational saving to the bank as well as a much better customer experience.”

It already seems like there is a compelling case to make the move to the cloud. But Luke also wanted to illustrate how it helps in terms of future-proofing, and further developments. Noting that their team was all about change & transformation, he identified some future use-cases that would be aided by the cloud migration, “So email bots is a big one for us, the use of Cosmos, Pega Robotics, Cloud-based document processing and mail processing, all those things, are unlocking future technology.”

The Challenges of Full-Scale Cloud Migration
Understandably, when undertaking such a large migration of services, across multiple systems, there will be challenges along the way. The first of these, Steve explained, was that it was the first time that they were using AWS for their cloud systems, “We’ve had to satisfy numerous covenants and technical challenges around data, data transfer & data classification.”

Secondly, they had to overcome the issue of working on a brand new system. As they were used to building and testing automation systems of Pega 6 & 7, having to develop new ones for Pega 7 & Pega Cloud was no simple feat, as Steve explained, “We are building the test automation from scratch so, you know, so all the all of the old work is now redundant.”

Finally, there was the issue of COVID-19, something that presented a major stumbling block to everyone in recent weeks and months. While Steve admitted that they had “lost some timeline” due to the pandemic, he felt that they have come out the other side “by and large looking good.”

Is migrating to the cloud an evolving trend?
With established and well-known banks such as Lloyds making the move to the cloud, are other businesses doing the same, both in the UK and globally? That question was put to Dave Ray in the Q&A at the end of the session.

Dave agreed that this was the case, that many other organisations are also looking at how they can migrate to the cloud. He explained that he had received emails asking for advice on the process from “across the globe really, I’ve had people contact me from Australia and America and across Europe.” He thinks, however, that many companies may find themselves asking the wrong questions, “the question should not just be about what cloud you should be using, because it also comes down to how skilled you are as an organisation set up to support cloud-services.”

This applies, argued Dave, whether that’s through Pega Cloud, another cloud-service, or making the potentially tricky transformation away from on-prem systems. According to Dave at Pegasystems, therefore, they focus first on what Pega Cloud can actually be used for to modernise the organisation in question, and what business value they can offer. This is relevant, he rationalises, whether it’s “moving applications on to Pega cloud,” or “in other areas, where it has been around remediating risk or lowering infrastructure costs.” In Dave’s opinion, this leads to a really pleasing result, one where he can see “the massive association with business value for the applications we’ve upgraded.”

[mikemichael2] 17/7/2020 08:28

Do you know the cost of keeping a person in Belmarsh a week for the UK taxpayer??

[gbh2] 17/7/2020 08:26

I keep picking up a few more each time I see -30p, collecting for the future :)

[diku] 17/7/2020 08:22

Hope not but this has below 30p written all over it...

[mikemichael2] 17/7/2020 08:06

She needs our support, she has been brainwashed!! In fact they all have been brainwashed, let them all in!!!

As-Salaam-Alaikum

[joe say] 17/7/2020 07:47

Arrest her should she be allowed in

And don't count on my vote Boris if she does arrive - if you as a government can't stop this then you're not fit for purpose

[ekuuleus] 16/7/2020 23:39

You cant avoid the tax above the lta. Perhaps you should take some advice.

[uppompeii] 16/7/2020 22:16

It is true, I used to be 'they', am now retired and the pension funds I hold will be passed in their entirety to my kids. Anyway this isn't the place, but you should take advice.

[utrickytrees] 16/7/2020 22:15

Douglas Murray on Min

[portside1] 16/7/2020 21:52

Hackers are having great time fleecing online buyers , The bank is not to blame if your details are stolen by giving out your bank details to a person working from their home It is not secure , Why are the press nor reporting this .They are to busy making fake news

[portside1] 16/7/2020 21:48

Op , yes but very few listen them blame some one else Op trains are not operating to book Going to station tomorrow to see if I can book to south port For 6 nights and get a return , on net its rubbish

[optomistic] 16/7/2020 21:45

Sound advice Porto, we all must take extra care.

[portside1] 16/7/2020 21:15

One. Women as lost over 3500 to this , The children get scammed offering them free games that's how they get into their internet setting , Be aware those working from home are not secure .Giving them your bank details to buy online .Is very risky ,and you are not covered by your bank it's your fault. Read your banks code

[portside1] 16/7/2020 21:12

Why is Lloyd's not telling it's customers not to give out their bank details online , hundreds have been scammed by giving out bank details to buy online not knowing they are open to fraud because the person you are dealing with is not in the office but at home we're all the family use that internet Hundreds have had their details stolen We're is the pra Lloyd's bank says any one giving their bank details online to a person in their home is not covered by the bank , you should check if the person is working from home It is your responsibility ,

[jimarilo] 16/7/2020 20:49

Methanol as an Unlisted Ingredient in Supposedly Alcohol-Based Hand Rub Can Pose Serious Health Risk



Methanol not effective or safe hand sanitizer or disinfectant cautions MI

[portside1] 16/7/2020 20:22

41% in Leicester can not speak any English They are ignoring all the rules , News

[diku] 16/7/2020 20:20

Makes you wonder if this share malaki is eventually a zero sums game...





GeckotheGlorious16 Jul '20 - 13:39 - 310226 of 310267
0 0 0
Unfair on Minerve to be fair Jacko.

Many got burned by Woodford.

I count my lucky stars I avoided investing,despite being tempted because I liked his "original style"

As soon as he went off piste, down the "unquoted investment" route that was a red flag for me.