Products versus Customers

It strikes me that there is a really deep flaw in the way traditional core banking systems model the relationship between an institution and the end consumer. Often these systems are product-based, with the customer’s relationship with the bank modelled as an artefact of the origination process. I have heard this described as “inverting the customer/product model”. To me the standard product-based approach is basically backwards. I should be able to have a relationship with the bank that is independent of any particular product. Of course this is changing with modern CRM systems, but the fact remains that there is a huge underlying legacy of core banking systems that seem to have the basic abstraction wrong.

M@