Vendors
日本語
search
  2. //
  3. Reports & insights
  4. //
  5. Retail Bank IT Spending Goes Back to the Future

Retail Bank IT Spending Goes Back to the Future

Create a vendor selection project
Click to express your interest in this report
Indication of coverage against your requirements
A subscription is required to activate this feature. Contact us for more info.
Celent have reviewed this profile and believe it to be accurate.
We are waiting for the vendor to publish their solution profile. Contact us or request the RFX.
Projects allow you to export Registered Vendor details and survey responses for analysis outside of Marsh CND. Please refer to the Marsh CND User Guide for detailed instructions.
Download Registered Vendor Survey responses as PDF
Contact vendor directly with specific questions (ie. pricing, capacity, etc)
15 September 2022
Kieran Hines

As anyone who read Gareth Lodge’s blog post from earlier this year will know, we have spent a lot of time this year enhancing our methodology for forecasting bank IT spending (anyone interested in the report for retail banking will find it here). Our biggest change was to incorporate a dedicated piece of large-scale primary research into the model, which provides us with clear insights into the context behind the data.

What did we learn?

The headline is that the industry is very much back to focusing on innovation and revenue growth. Technology investment will underpin much of this activity and we will see global IT spending grow by 4.3% in 2022 (compared to 2021), followed by a further increase of 5.2% in 2023. This rate of expansion will fall back slightly in 2024 but we nevertheless expect to see retail bank IT investment increase at an average annual rate of 4.6% over the period to 2027. This is above the rate of ~3% we saw pre-Covid.

This reflects two important imperatives. The first is a desire to make up for some of the time lost during the pandemic, during which many projects and initiatives were delayed or put on ice (indeed total IT spending declined in 2020). The second is the growing understanding that the competitive landscape has shifted. Customer expectations have undoubtedly been changed by the pandemic, while the ecosystem of challenger and non-bank players has become a stronger competitive threat for incumbents. In short, many see the need to invest more simply to remain competitive.

These themes cut across most major markets as well as the range of customer segments that retail banks serve. While there are some important differences in the priorities at regional level, looking globally, the focus will be on enhancing digital customer onboarding, digital lending, small business banking services, and retail digital channels. Underpinning this, spending on cloud technologies (including SaaS) and data analytics will see strong growth.

A further shift will be the role that the open ecosystem will play in shaping the creation of new products and services. Open banking, banking-as-a-service and embedded finance models are high on the innovation agenda, and 73% of banks report that they have a clear strategy for engaging with one or more of these areas. An important factor here is the acceptance that no single bank (or vendor) can do everything themselves, making partnerships and engagement with ecosystems increasingly important to both supporting customers and delivering truly innovative propositions. This will continue to drive the product development agenda across the industry.

Looking at things from a regional perspective, it will be banks in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa that see the sharpest growth in IT investment over the coming five years. Those in MEA will lead the way, with expected annual growth in IT spending of 5.4%. Nevertheless, North America and Europe will still account for around 60% of global retail bank IT spending by 2027.

What does this mean for the industry? Clearly those banks with the resources to continue to grow their technology investments and develop their partner strategies will position themselves well for the future. Those that cannot risk facing a challenging period.