Many banks are struggling to succeed in today's challenging environment, thanks to more demanding customers; digital disruption; increasing levels of supervisory regulation; and the need for greater process efficiency, cost management, and business agility. In many cases, banks' existing business applications are unable to support these changing business needs. But while change is mandatory, transformation is risky — and we're seeing more and more examples of failed banking transformation projects. Application development and delivery professionals need to be aware of the most critical obstacles to delivering the banking platform of the future if they are to achieve ongoing business success while mitigating transformation risk. Failure won't deliver application systems that support the business processes needed to win, serve, and retain customers.