New York, NY, USA December 28, 2007

Celent aggregates financial services IT spending trends across regions, across industry verticals, and around the world.

In a new report, , Celent analyzes IT spending trends across different industry verticals (banking, insurance, and securities and investments) and different regions (North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region), in addition to an overview of Latin America and Africa. The prime focus of the report is to compare and contrast the direction of IT spending trends among financial services institutions.

Celent estimates that global information technology spending by financial services institutions will reach US$342.1 billion in 2007. This represents an increase of 5.9% over 2006. This figure is substantially lower than the 8.7% growth achieved in 2006. Although the next couple of years may be challenging, Celent expects global spending on IT products and services to grow to US$386.7 billion by 2009, representing a CAGR of 6.3% from 2007 to 2009.

"Growth rates have dropped across all regions, contributing to this lower total," says Jacob Jegher, senior analyst in Celent's banking group and co-author of the report. "US financial institutions have been hit particularly hard and challenges in this region are contributing to growth declines. The credit crunch and looming economic uncertainty have North American financial institutions tightening their belts. Ripples from the US subprime crisis are likely to have a dampening effect on other regions as well." This 62-page report contains 35 figures and 24 tables. A table of contents is available online. Members of Celent's research services can download the report electronically by clicking on the icon to the left. Non-members should contact info@celent.com for more information.