Cutting costs? It comes expensive. (automation in banking)

The automation technology, introduced to cut costs, has made banking more capital-intensive than ever.

The first aim of automation in banking is to establish clean data streams between counterparties, in order to cut the cost of handling paper. Netting systems arise in response to this need. The world’s money clearing networks–Chips in New York, Chaps in London, Sagittaire in France, Zengin in Tokyo–are essentially netting systems. By offsetting debits and credits between the major counterparties, they condense the movement of money to the minimum.