Challenges in the Adoption and Diffusion of Web Services in Financial Institutions

In the last years many solutions have been presented as the silver bullet to enhance the IT Information Technology of the financial institutions. This thesis is an investigation of the possible applications of web services to generate value in the financial industry, trying to segregate the business reality from the hype surrounding them. The work analyzes the potential benefits and the challenges involved in the adoption and diffusion of web services in the financial industry, utilizing academic research and examples of current use of web services, to try to derive the basis to their adoption in the next years. Thesis Supervisor: Stuart E. Madnick Title: John Norris Maguire Professor of Information Technology Thesis Reader: Michael D. Siegel Title: Senior Lecturer, Principal Research Scientist, Sloan School of Management