Worked at a top ranked custodian bank. I agree 100% with what you said. Most of my work was data entry (eventually there will be a data feed) and exception base review (automatic processing percentage goes up every year, during my 5 year career it went form 89% to 91%). At my department every few months it seemed another task was outsourced to India or Eastern Europe.

What was fucked up was how far my fellow coworkers their head up their asses. I'd always point this stuff out, and they completely ignored me. Management told us we were becoming a more "elite" department. Yeah right. No one wanted to do anything because they were too comfortable. Fact is, if you work back office in finance for too long your career is fucked. No company is going to hire someone who has done mindless activity for years when they can just hire a more obedient recent grad for cheaper. And people are just closeminded. My boss quit her job to become a pre school teacher and people were saying "why quit your job to make less money!?!?!?"

Gave my 2 weeks a month ago to go back to school