Signal to Noise (37 signal's weblog) has a posting called Citibank Horrors: How hard is everyday banking? - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals).
As someone building software in this space, I can vouch for the difficulty. While not quite rocket science, it certainly has it's share of unique constraints. Too often these constraints are self imposed; legacy systems that don't communicate, entrenched political domains that call the shots. All that's left is for some teams to try and isolate the customer as much as possible from the pain (think anti-corruption layer in domain driven design terms), but even that isn't always doable.
Of course, the solution is to replace or update these legacy systems, but that involves lots of risk. And most financial institutions (probably for good reason) are risk adverse. So you get that bad customer experience as a result.
This is Rob Meyer's weblog, a weblog focused on software development and system administration based on 10 years of experience. Want to explore further? You can find out more me or see the rest of my website.
Wondering if I've written on something in particular? Try searching:
You might want to take a look at some of the more requested postings (as judged by incoming traffic):
Want more? Subscribe to this site 
or contact me at rob at big dis dot com.
See my writings on: