Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam irked his finance chief David Mathers by taking away his Blackberry. What the pseudo-spat between the two top bankers says about the bank's technology spending bill.
«I've been a happy iPhone user ever since» he was forced to move from Android to iOS 18 months ago, Credit Suisse finance chief and former Blackberry addict David Mathers tried to tell journalists at the Swiss bank's second-quarter results, brandishing his relatively new Apple device.
«He was not happy» about giving up his Blackberry, CEO Tidjane Thiam responded dryly. «It was a big story between us because its symbolic: really, otherwise you get bad cost management.»
Blackberries, long the go-to smartphone brand of the C-suite, have been banished by Credit Suisse. The Zurich-based bank refuses to support the technology for its bankers anymore, part of a plan to slash billions in spending in Thiam's three-year restructuring of Credit Suisse, which concludes this year.
BYO Device, Please
Credit Suisse was one of the first banks to require bankers to use their own devices for work, instead providing a separate device. The bank wants to lower spending to less than 17 billion francs next year, from nearly 23 billion the year Thiam joined.
Many of the cuts are coming from letting go employees or relocating them to cheaper countries than Switzerland, but tech also figures prominently. A strategic resolution program is identifying business lines, assets, and leverage to exit, as well as to taking down older infrastructure that the bank had been spending to prop up. Blackberry, the once iconic smartphone brand, is one of the apps that Credit Suisse has «decommissioned», or sent out to pasture.
«We're Not Suicidal»
Mathers said that the infrastructure for zombie apps is shipped to third-party vendors, which in turn lease back to Credit Suisse at about half the price, typically for three years only. After that, «the IT [information technology] is gone», and with it the maintenance costs, according to Mathers.
Credit Suisse is prickly about suggestions it is starving its IT to hit targets for spending cuts. «We're not suicidal: of course we’re investing in IT. If others are unable to cut costs and invest in IT at the same time, that’s not our fault. We are able to», Thiam said. He pointed at digitization efforts, mainly in Credit Suisse's Swiss arm, as prominent investment examples.
