What I don't understand is how that comes to be. Are just people who are not skilled enough applying to work at a bank? Do they have some weird selection criteria that tends to discard all the good people?
You'd think that they'd hire some good people by accident and those people would be more than capable of running the whole operation, but apparently they don't.
And if you don't save it you'll get a bollocking for showing initiative. Because, apparently, our fetishistic obsession with WIP-limiting means we can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
I've never worked for a bank but this all sounds very similar to a (mercifully brief) contract I did for a multinational in a different sector many years ago.
Most people dont like that kind of bureaucracy.
Add the usual outsourcing issues, managing communications across 3 countries and 3 opposing project managers and little happens.
Banking does have good developers but they mostly aggregate in investment banks and hedge funds, that are inhouse and have more means. Retail banking is unfortunately not a great industry financially or technically.