IT spending by banking and securities firms in Australia is forecast to reach $14.8 billion in 2017, according to research and analyst firm, Gartner.
In its latest report, named Forecast: Enterprise IT Spending for the Banking and Securities Market, Worldwide, 2014-2020, 4Q16 Update it found that this forecast is an increase of five per cent from last year.
It also found that in Australia, the banking and securities sector represents the third largest vertical market in terms of IT spending, following the communications, media and services sector, and the manufacturing and natural resources sector.
Gartner said this forecast provides total enterprise IT spending for internal spending and spending data on data centre systems, devices, software, IT services and telecom services for 43 countries within 11 regions.
"The banking and securities industry is focused on investing in advanced data and analytics, as new tools like artificial intelligence are becoming popular in this industry," Gartner principal research analyst, Moutusi Sau, said.
On a regional level, IT spending by banking and securities firms in the mature Asia-Pacific region is expected to reach $US67.1 billion in 2017, an increase of 5.4 per cent from 2016.
Gartner said the mature Asia-Pacific region consists of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. In US dollar terms, it added that Japan is the largest market, but New Zealand will have the highest growth rate in 2017 at 6.4 per cent, followed by Japan at 5.6 per cent.
In addition, it reported that the software segment will grow the fastest at 8.5 per cent in 2017, as firms in the banking and securities industry invest more in applications, infrastructure and vertical-specific software.
Applications are expected to be growing the fastest in this category, contributing 12.4 per cent growth in 2017.
This claim is further supported by a recent IDC report, which identified that worldwide revenues for IT products and services are forecast to reach nearly $US2.4 trillion in 2017, representing an increase of 3.5 per cent over 2016.
IDC research reported that with global investments set to grow to nearly $US2.65 trillion by 2020, industry spending on IT products and services will continue to be led by financial services (banking, insurance, and securities and investment services) and manufacturing (discrete and process).
Together, these industries is said to generate around 30 per cent of all IT revenues.
“Strong pockets of growth have emerged, such as investments by financial services firms and utilities in data analytics software, or IT services spending by telcos and banks,” IDC vice-president of customer insights, Stephen Minton, said in a previous report.
