The core IT competency that banks will need in the future will be integration services rather than systems development skills. And that is just as well given the challenges banks are experiencing finding and paying for IT skills.Patrick Maes, the chief technology officer of ANZ, told the FST Media Technology and Innovation Conference yesterday that banks were increasingly turning to packaged rather than bespoke IT solutions to run their businesses. They had been spurred by the GFC, he noted.His claims must be music to the ears of Westpac, which this week promised a 2012 "step change" in its approach to sourcing IT. Westpac's announcement has been widely interpreted as signalling a move towards outsourcing and offshoring much of its technology requirement. NAB is also pledging to avoid customised software, instead planning to use off-the-shelf system updates supplied by Oracle to keep its NextGen banking platform up-to-date.Competitive advantage won't come from what the banks develop in the future, but from how they implement and integrate the technology they buy. That will, in time, likely reduce the banks' need to find increasingly scarce IT development skills.NAB group executive Gavin Slater acknowledged that finding technical skills in general was a challenge. "The number of technology graduates coming out of universities has halved over the last decade, which I think is an alarming proposition," he said.And, where permanent employees can't be found, IT contractors are being used, which is impacting on costs. ANZ's end-of-year results released yesterday show that during the year the cost of computer contractors rose 19 per cent to A$143 million. According to the ANZ's Maes, "The biggest challenge in banking IT is access to skills."Although the right IT skills are in scarce supply, the banks cannot afford to slow development -especially with the rise of non-traditional players in financial services, particularly in the payments sphere.Alex Twigg, general manager of UBank, the internet-only arm of NAB, said that in the future, "The agility of the business is going to be key… if you do not make a competitive play to new entrants they will get a foothold and that's when you are in real trouble."We have to be able to spin on a dime. Our biggest challenge is to create organisations that are able to cope with that pace of change. You need a three-month window to go from idea to execution."