"We are in the fifth year of a larger operations transformation, " he said. "It does take a long time and we've been going with this work after deploying virtualisation for three years.

"...I fear that not many enterprises worldwide have gone beyond their existing enterprise architecture and taken the next step into everything as a service."

Harte also recommended the use of shared infrastructure across the banking sector.

"I'm very open to sharing non-contestable, non-value adding and non-core infrastructure," he said.

Suggesting that standardisation be made a key focus across the sector, Harte said agility can only be achieved with a more open banking structure.