Banks and financial institutions are subject to extensive document retention and security regulations -- using Google Docs is out of the question. Of course, that is one of the primary reasons why their upgrade paths are so slow.

they have slow update paths because they can get away with slow update paths. if web developers stop catering to lazy IT departments, maybe they won't be so slow anymore.

They have slow update paths because they've spent a lot of money on in-house middleware that they don't feel a need to update, and sometimes those systems don't work so hot on the new browser. Faced with a choice between updating old middleware and not updating the browser, they choose to wait on updating the browser. The longer they do that, the more work the middleware needs to be "up to date", and the worse the problem becomes. Definitely not isolated to banks.