"By actually paying for licenses they "don't" need*?"
The same banks that usually throw away a lot of money in many silly ways?
Which licenses they didn't need? The one that actually made the software working, as the demo didn't work when the license expired? I guess it was the usual case of "we'll address the licenses issue later..."
A trial licenses *is not* a development license - the name tells what it is for. Development licenses are usually exactly alike the full ones, so you can develop and test your software *properly* without any trial/demo restrictions and lack of support and fixes.
If you're mean and prefer "free trials" to save some money, you can end to lose a lot because you can't develop properly.
If you win a bid because you're going to save on development expenses using such tricks, there are big risk you become a liability when the software is deployed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
