Как M&T Bank построил Технологический Центр в Буффало

Когда Майкл Вислер присоединился к M&T Bank в 2018 году, технологии не занимали центральное место в конкурентной стратегии банка. Учреждение превратилось в один из крупнейших региональных банков страны, уделяя особое внимание дисциплинированному исполнению, взаимоотношениям с клиентами и глубокому пониманию своих сообществ.

Вислер, ныне старший исполнительный вице-президент по технологиям и операционной деятельности, считал, что для сохранения этих преимуществ потребуется иной подход к технологиям и данным. Работая с председателем правления и главным исполнительным директором Рене Джонсом, он приступил к восьмилетней трансформации, направленной на превращение технологий из вспомогательной функции в стратегический актив.

Компания M&T, которая в 2025 году заработала более 9 миллиардов долларов дохода и имеет активы примерно на 212 миллиардов долларов, в настоящее время ежегодно инвестирует в технологии более 1 миллиарда долларов. Он нанял 1000 технологов, создал три технологических центра и значительно повысил надежность и производительность своего технологического комплекса.

"Мы только что перешли от некой версии пассива к реальному активу банка", - взволнованно подчеркнул Вислер.

Вислер характеризует начальную трансформацию как "сложный процесс, о котором никто не заботится". Клиенты и коллеги ожидают, что технология будет работать, но редко видят инженерную дисциплину и техническое обслуживание, необходимые для ее стабильного осуществления.

Когда он пришел, в M&T ежегодно происходило более 100 технологических сбоев. Банк сильно зависел от подрядчиков, выделял ресурсы на ежегодных конкурсах для небольшого числа крупных проектов и выделял значительные ресурсы на системы, которые ему больше не были нужны.

Команда Вислера сосредоточилась на талантах, гибкости, инженерных методах и технической задолженности. За восемь лет M&T сократила количество простоев примерно на 90%. Количество ежегодных выпусков увеличилось с 15 000 в 2018 году до 65 000 в 2025 году, несмотря на то, что размер организации остался примерно таким же.

Примерно 30% технологических активов M&T изначально считались активами, не имеющими целевого назначения. В настоящее время эта цифра выражается однозначными цифрами. Между тем, 84% инженеров технологической организации являются банковскими служащими, что позволяет отказаться от прежней зависимости от третьих сторон.

"If you believe, like I do, that the skill of technologists and the ability to master technology is somewhere close to the central thesis of maintaining or creating an advantage, then you have to have a reverence for that," Wisler said.

The transformation required more than investment. Wisler initially resisted questions about whether M&T should build or buy systems, when it would move to the cloud and how it would introduce agile methods. He believed leaders first needed to examine their assumptions about competition.

"Do we believe that the winners of the future are going to be communities of learners?" he asked. "Do we believe that it’s the most nimble and the most responsive that are going to be the winners?" His answer to these rhetorical questions are yes and yes.

Once M&T aligned around those beliefs, it could establish behaviors that placed greater trust in employees closest to problems, encouraged leaders to support their teams and rewarded continuous learning. Only then did specific technology practices become useful.

Talent development became another foundation. M&T’s Technology Development Program has brought more than 350 recent computer science graduates into the bank. The company also created nontraditional pipelines to identify people in the community who possess technical aptitude but lack conventional career opportunities.

Approximately a year ago, Wisler’s mandate expanded to include operations. The change reflects M&T’s belief that the two functions are increasingly inseparable as customer service, back-office processes and risk management become more dependent on software and data.

"As our technology debt went down, as our resiliency went up, as our speed went up and as our quality went up, it became obvious to us that the next biggest opportunity for what I like to call the continuous renovation of the bank was likely in our operations," Wisler noted.

Historically, many operational capabilities were embedded within business lines. That preserved proximity to the business but did not always provide the consistency and scale required of a larger institution. Bringing technology and operations together allows M&T to modernize processes and supporting systems through a common agenda.

M&T’s technology modernization was accompanied by a similar effort to strengthen its data foundation. The bank spent years identifying where data resided, moving it to modern platforms, improving its reliability and making it more accessible.

That work was especially important for an institution whose advantage historically came from employees’ knowledge of local communities. Rather than replace that experience, M&T wants data to amplify it.

The foundation now supports dozens of generative AI use cases pursued through three pathways. The first is enterprise fluency, with approximately 16,000 employees actively using generative AI tools to learn and improve productivity. The second involves identifying valuable AI capabilities within the bank’s more than 1,800 applications, many of which are supplied by third parties.

The third is proprietary development. M&T is exploring where large language models and agentic solutions built around its distinctive data and processes could create competitive advantage. Early applications include automating repetitive work, accelerating software development and strengthening fraud prevention and cyber defense.

Wisler describes the philosophy as going "slow to go fast," ensuring that data, risk controls and management disciplines are ready before capabilities scale. Generative AI poses a particular challenge in regulated industries, where models have traditionally been expected to deliver predictable outcomes.

"We’ve got to find safe, transparent constructs in which we can satisfy that model certainty with something that essentially is hard to pin down when it’s more generative," he highlighted.

Wisler believes M&T’s years of foundational work leave it well positioned for this next era. The technology may be new, but the underlying requirements remain familiar: strong talent, trusted data, disciplined execution and a willingness to keep learning.

"We’re living in probably the fastest time of humanity," he said. "That can be scary until you realize this is probably as slow as it’ll ever be."

Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written three bestselling books, including his latest Getting to Nimble. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on X @PeterAHigh.