Forgive me if I missed something but it sure sounds like banks are going to get their teeth knocked out if that's what they think constitutes 'hand-to-hand combat' for recruiting tech talent. It's good to focus more on engineering schools but that is only putting you at the start line against everyone else trying to recruit IT grads.

I don't know the financial industry well, but it sounds like they have some of the myopia problems that other old, big industries have when it comes to recruiting IT people. They look around and wonder why people don't want to work with them, and think if only they recruit harder they'll fix the problem.

IMO part of their problem is that their organizational cultures don't put a high priority on IT, nor do they necessarily give IT the autonomy they need to deliver value. So if you do succeed in hiring great people they'll get frustrated and eventually leave. The work is naturally not going to be as sexy as startup land or dedicated tech companies, but the bureaucracy is a killer.

The other side of that is that IT people aren't valued as much as managers and regular line of business employees, so naturally they're loath to pay at market rates for IT people.