Article at a glance:

Merging bank operations across borders

• Bank mergers are on the rise in Europe, but the operations and IT systems of most banks are unsuited to integrating new acquisitions efficiently.
• The banks' IT and operations are often unnecessarily complex and haphazardly constructed on layers of projects—an architecture that makes it difficult to integrate newly acquired institutions.
• Some banks have reduced costs by consolidating to build scale or by offshoring, but few have comprehensively redesigned their entire operating model.
• A larger-scale transformation is more difficult but positions banks to make the most of their operations investments and absorb new acquisitions more quickly.