[lettergram]

Using AS/400 systems would make them a computer service company. I actually work at a bank (developing apps) and we use a massive COBOL system for a lot of data. However, we also have a massive Hadoop cluster (much larger than the COBOL systems, and firewalls everywhere.

Banks might not be the most competent at web programming, but they higher a ridiculous number of awesome security folks. I would still put them behind Apple or Google in their given domains, but many banks have pretty robust technical systems for their domain.

[Margh]

Every bank I've ever been with has had a pathetic limit on its online banking passwords. One of them (NAB) was limited to something like 10 characters and only numbers and letters.

Maybe that's changed recently but still, firewalls won't help you when somebody brute forces your users' passwords in 10 minutes.