Fixing IT problems used to be simple: the trader just walked round the corner to the techie’s desk and yelled in his ear. Brave was the anorak that argued the point with a Dick in a decidedly unswinging mood – the problem got fixed the trader’s way even if there was a better solution.
But now, in some banks – JP Morgan is one – yelling at IT is an outmoded concept. JP Morgan’s techies sit in Glasgow, and they only respond to politeness, reasoned argument and a bit of internal bureaucracy. How extremely over-sensitive of them! But it does seem to work better.
“When the operation was first set up, bankers argued that IT couldn’t be done remotely,” says Paul Murphy, CEO of JP Morgan Scotland. “In fact, because we are remote we have managed to force through a process that distinguishes essential work from non-essential.”
This new set-up also gives the Glasgow techies, who are based in Alhambra House in Waterloo Street, time to think. It’s time that they have used wisely, by coming up with a way to harness JP Morgan’s unused computer power to do risk calculations.
Little do JP Morgan’s 90,000 PC users know that when they switch off at night, a program called Merlin plugs into 500 or so servers to do overnight risk calculations on derivatives’ positions.
One thing is certain – the techies would not have come up with this one if they were still being beaten up on a London trading floor.
