Total spending on information technology is expected to exceed EU44.6 billion this year, according to Celent consultants.
In a new report, “IT Spending Trends in European Banking, 2004,” Celent says the leading European bank in terms of IT spending will be HSBC, with an estimated IT budget of EU3billion. Deutsche Bank is second with EU2.6 billion, a position it shares with UBS, which has allocated the same amount to IT. ABN Amro is fourth, with an estimated EU2.2 billion IT budget. These four banks are members of the small club of European banks that are expected to spend more than EU2 billion on IT in 2004.
Even so, despite the economic improvement expected for 2004, European banks will invest less in IT this year than in the past four years. In fact, the European banking industry will invest 5% less in IT in 2004 than in 2003, spending a total of EU44,601 million.
“Despite a global IT spending reduction, the investment in new projects will be fairly high this year at 9.5% of the total IT budget,” says Axel Pierron, Celent analyst and author of the report. “Cost reduction will again be a factor, particularly maintenance costs,” he adds.
The report includes a clear discussion of the IT priorities at European banks, including how budgets are being allocated and the business trends driving those decisions.