The paper presents the results of a survey on the current and future role of web services technologies in banking and financial services organizations. The survey asked financial experts to express their views about the importance of web services for banks in the next five to ten years. In addition the paper presents the results of interviews with two international banks about their current utilization of web services applications as well as about their future plans to deploy web services. The paper attempts to draw conclusions as to what banks perceive to be the main strengths and limitations of web services, and their future role in the financial services industry. KEYWORDS Web services, banking technology, financial services