e-Corporate Banking in Europe

During the past five years, European banks have invested massively in online retail banking solutions; however, little has been done to develop the Internet for use by the corporate segment. In 2001, IT spending on retail banking in Europe exceeded €600 million, while slightly more than €200 million was spent on the corporate side. This trend is changing. Investments in e-corporate banking solutions should grow by 200% by 2005, to €450 million.

Celent’s new report, e-corporate banking in Europe, finds that as banks and corporations become more aware of the benefits of advanced cash management solutions, banks are increasingly offering more sophisticated solutions to this segment. By 2005, all large banks in Europe will provide specific features for corporate clients on their Web sites. In addition, the number of medium-sized European banks providing similar services will increase from 44% in 2001 to 82% in 2005.

"And despite national and regional differences, European banks have, as a whole, have preferred to use their internal IT departments for deploying new e-corporate banking solutions" add analyst Axel Pierron, author of the report. " But this trend will change, and by 2004, outsourced development will represent more than 30% of deployments in e-corporate banking solutions".

"Although European businesses tend to use more than one bank, almost 50% of their data exchange occurs with only one bank " says Axel Pierron. "Banks need to leverage the Internet in order to cement their relationships with leading corporate customers, and prevent them from going elsewhere"

The report examines the current states of e-corporate banking market in Europe. It looks at the functionalities already available on banks’ corporate web site, the size of the market, banking revenue structure, and the existing factors affecting the corporate banking market. It also provides projections for adoption rates, future functionality, source of income and methods of deployments chosen by banks. The report concludes with key points for banks considering deploying new functionality within their corporate banking web-sites.