The financial sector has to get with the technology programme

WAY back in the 70s, a Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson invented the world's first digital-still camera. Kodak executives, afraid that the technology would cannibalise the company's photographic film business and wanting to maintain the status quo, mothballed his project. By the 2000s, Kodak was fighting for its life in the digital camera revolution. In 2012, it was forced to file for bankruptcy.

It was a similar story for Nokia. Once regarded as an unassailable force, the mobile phone maker was brought to its knees by new technologies - Apple's iPhone and Google's Android - that the company chose to disregard.

The business world is filled with stories of companies that have failed to embrace innovation and adapt in the face of new technology, only to fall by the wayside like Kodak and Nokia - or worse, become extinct.