Paperless Cheques

Then there is the whole issue of data storage, the rising need for which has only been exacerbated by the Check 21 provisions in the US (that's how they spell "cheque" there).

Under the Check Clearing for the 21st Century regulations, financial institutions have the freedom to move around images of cheques rather than pieces of paper. The legislation grew out of the US federal government's post-September 11, 2001, realization that the physical cheque clearing systems were highly insecure, particularly when paper cheques are shipped by air.

The legislation encourages adoption of image exchange capabilities, introduction of more efficient and historically accurate electronics-based processes, and the implementation of new, more information-rich product suites. While the act does not require the electronic exchange of cheque images, known as IRDs (Image Replacement Documents), it instructs banks to honour those images when they are presented in lieu of paper, ensuring digitally-imaged and substitute cheques the same legal status as paper cheques.

Most banks have chosen to move slowly and cautiously towards taking advantage of the Check 21 provisions. For many that means entirely renovating the back office to allow the use of images, and to find ways to infuse electronic data into their systems. Many legacy bank back-office systems are not prepared to handle electronic image exchange and banks will need to make significant investments to integrate image capability.

IT departments need to ensure the electronically imaged data is good, and is capable of being integrated.

However, Spicer is also deeply concerned about the implications of moving from paper to image for data storage, particularly at a time when consumers are swamping Internet sites to download songs, video and images, many of which are being both stored and shared. As a result, he fears, storage which is virtually being "given away" now may become "incredibly expensive", and all banks need to anticipate that trend.

"That means trying to get smarter about what you're copying so you don't have two copies of it and three copies of it. We're talking about it and thinking about it, but even the research people are talking about the fact that if I have a copy of a song and you need a copy of it, we've got to find a way that ideally stores that thing once. We just can't keep copying it and copying it like we do, because we treat storage as if it is infinite. So that's going to become a challenge. Now am I putting systems in place to better manage my storage and be smarter about it? Absolutely. I've got dedicated projects for that."

Staying the Course

There cannot be many CIOs around who have spent as long in virtually the same role in a single organization as Spicer has. How does he account for the longevity? As much as he enjoys the continual excitement of facing new challenges and opportunities, the strong leadership of Chevy Chase Bank founder and proprietor B Francis Saul II keeps him where he is. "It's a very exciting place to work, with very strong management and leadership and support via IT," Spicer says.

Through an impressively long career Spicer has been perfectly positioned to watch the course of business IT, from the advent of single-tier architecture run on a mainframe with dumb terminals to today's highly virtualized information technology universe with its many vertically-integrated data systems.