Call for courses to meet US needs

US banks will create thousands of high-paying business information jobs here if Irish third-level colleges agree to develop customised training courses, according to a leading academic.

Senior American banking executives have told the head of Business Information Systems (BIS) at UCC, Professor Ciaran Murphy, that they want to outsource a large volume of systems modernisation work, but cannot find appropriate overseas partners.

Prof Murphy has developed a customised post-grad programme and informed the relevant Irish agencies, but is afraid the opportunity will be lost unless the State responds quickly. US banking group State Street has already outsourced thousands of these systems modernisation roles, and others are also set to make similar moves.

“This is a big opportunity and will take other education providers than just UCC on board to meet the demand. We have devised a post-grad programme, which we are more than willing to share with others.

“If we were to get six or eight institutions taking on 500 students between them, that would be a good start. The Government says its main policy now is to create jobs. These jobs pay well above the average and they will be there for 20 years,” Prof Murphy said.

The UCC academic said American financial institutions need to convert their old 1970s legacy systems, linking them to the internet and to large database systems like Oracle.

“It is a big challenge, and the systems personnel at many of the banks are over 55 years of age on average.

“A HR executive in one US bank told me that this information systems drive is a far bigger issue than dealing with Y2K seemed to be in 1999. Most US executives would prefer to outsource to Ireland’s time zone, with a five-hour time difference, than to China, with a 12-hour difference,” he added.

Donegal-based Pramerica Systems Ireland, a wing of US-owned Prudential Financial, employs around 670 people in Donegal in legacy conversion roles similar to those described by Prof Murphy.

Back in 2000, Limerick IT responded to Prudential’s call by training lecturers in mainframe computing and associated technologies, and leased a mainframe environment from IBM at its Atlanta, US, facility. Around 80% of LIT’s “customised” graduates have found employment with Pramerica.

The new programme being proposed by UCC’s BIS unit would help convert unemployed graduates from fields as diverse as Civil Engineering and Music, and set them up in work placements with US financial institutions.