Oh, some of the hypes for traditional finance might be justified in a roundabout way:

Lots of traditional banks are incompetent and set in their ways. Shaking anything up internally requires lots of (office-) political capital.

Having an internal 'blockchain' project might give people just enough leeway and direct backing from above to push through lots of needed but unsettling improvements. Even though those improvements might not have anything to do with blockchains, and might even be better done without.