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Fat clients: banks really should think |
Financial institutions should work harder to force their clients to be thin, according to a new report from Meridien research and IDC Financial Services entitled ‘I’m Not Quite Dead Yet’: Fat Clients Cling to Life.
Since when have banks had a say in their clients’ diets? But that’s not all the report calls for. As IDC’s research director, Jeanne Capachin, says: “Financial institutions need to make a decision about fat clients. I think it is best to retire them.”
But before you imagine corporate bank managers saying “shape up or find yourself another bank”, and before obesity support groups call up to complain, that’s not the subject in hand. Meridien and IDC are talking about the size of the computer system that clients use to communicate with the bank, not their waistlines.
Put simply, fat client applications are those that rely on substantial software packages that are installed remotely. So a bank might mail a cash management application to a client as a disc. The client then installs and uses the application and all the data is stored by the corporate. The bank has to physically mail out any upgrades to the system, and it finds itself under pressure to provide bespoke systems for each client, or at least to handle clients’ idiosyncrasies.
Thin clients use internet-based technology to interact with the bank, and the data is stored by the bank rather than the client. Around 80% of clients are happy to use web-based tools but it is difficult to convince the rest to move onto another system. It may take until 2004 to get those clients using new technology.
Capachin says fat clients should change their ways. “It is easier to support thin clients than fat ones,” she says.
