We’re only at the beginning of a revolution in financial services, according to Capital One Financial Chief Information Officer Rob Alexander.
“Banking is the most ripe industry for disruption,” he explained at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Aspen. “The winners will be the ones that become a technology business and not remain as an old school banking company.”
“For big banks, it is a wrenching change,” he added.
Capital One’s effort to stay relevant involves making a massive investment in talent, and relying more on creating software and technologies in-house instead of outsourcing the job. The banking giant recently acquired mobile app development firm Monsoon, and bought web design firm Adaptive Path in 2014.
Alexander predicted a massive change by banks around tracking realtime data about their operations and then making decisions based on what they find. They also want to interact with customers in a more dynamic ways around this data.
Quentin Clark, the chief technology officer of enterprise technology giant SAP, echoed Alexander’s thoughts, “Everything is going to become realtime. Companies need to go from being IT companies to tech companies, he said, realizing the opportunity to really adopt the new waves of data processing technologies, data storage and more. “The smart companies know things are changing and afraid, and want to change.”