You will need to fully understand what megabanks are and why they are dangerous on their computer systems are wailing.

Towards the end of 2008, the banking fraternity got the worst jolt since the 1930s after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. Many bankers would later admit how dazed they were all through the months that followed. Many felt the end was near for the banking industry and this obviously sent shockwaves through the global financial market. Even the experts in the business were now lost on what they should do next.

Many professionals in the business were almost certain that the society systems would collapse –at least as we know them today even if it would have been for a temporary period. The danger of finding shut ATMs, pharmacies, petrol stations and stores suddenly became very real. However, not every banker or bank staff was panicking. It is unimaginable how the billions of people all over the world would take news that they could no longer access their money or even buy food.

Politicians saved the day this time. Billions upon billions were thrown in to help stabilize the near financial falling system.

What is a megabank? – Oftentimes, a megabank is defined as that bank whose operations spread across the six continents. Such a bank operates 24/7 and it has hundreds of thousands in its payroll. Its operations are diverse and different. Every other day the bank sees its systems handle trillions of dollars. Their operating systems are complex and versatile, to say the least. Most of the megabanks that we have today didn’t grow gradually but rather, they reached where they are in several grand leaps. They merged, bought and took over other financial institutions and banks from all corners of the world.

As the megabanks rapidly grew to their current global stature, the funding of their IT systems was not done commensurately. It is considered normal for a bank to have different systems for its different functions. If a bank has operations in different countries, you will find that in every other country the bank has a different system. The banks are improving their systems step by step and their systems are an improvement of what they were using several years back. IT specialists had to work hard to bring the plethora of systems to work as one. This meant that the IT experts had to create systems to run the already different and diverse systems in different countries and departments.

As one IT expert said, people would be shocked once they read of the shambles the IT departments are normally in for most banks and government ministries and agencies. The public only gets a glimpse of how messed up these organizations’ IT departments are when they have to go for hours or days without being served because of a ‘system failure or computer problem’.

It normally takes such a bank an awfully long time to solve the ‘problem’. But you will be shocked to hear that most of the time spent is not in solving the problem but rather trying to figure out where the real problem is in the first place.

With the very complicated systems, it is understandable when an IT specialist says that megabanks are just too big and complicated to manage. However, one only needs to look back to 2008 and appreciate the fact that megabanks are way too big to fail in what they do.

Read the full story on ‘The Guardian’s’ website…