The Asia Pacific region is experiencing robust growth in IT spending, projected to continue into 2025. This growth is driven by diverse factors across different countries. For instance, Japanese banks are focused on modernizing legacy systems, while Australian and Indonesian banks aim to enhance operational efficiencies. A common priority across the region is IT security and operational resilience, often influenced by regulatory requirements.
Key investment areas include enhancing customer experiences through digital channels, improving account opening processes, and expanding open banking initiatives. Additionally, there is a significant focus on leveraging data technologies such as AI and analytics to improve digital channels, customer onboarding, and financial crime compliance. Agility and speed are also emphasized as critical for responding to market changes and customer demands.
To shed light on the business pressures and technology priorities of the industry, Celent has completed its third global survey of senior executives at retail banks: The Celent Dimensions Survey 2024. This study captures the insights and opinions of 76 respondents at financial institutions in Europe to provide an in-depth view into attitudes across the region, as well as highlighting the leading technology priorities for the year ahead and the products and processes that will see the greatest change.
Key findings include:
- 60% of banks perceive an increasing competitive threat from fintechs, and 44% find it more challenging to win and retain customers compared to the previous year
- Over half of the banks prioritize reducing expenses and improving operational efficiency through automation and modernization.
- IT spending is expected to grow by an average of 3% in 2024, with further increases anticipated in 2025.
- Banks are also prioritizing the launch of new customer-facing services using generative AI, with 70% planning such initiatives in 2024.
- 65% of the banks have clear strategies in Open banking, Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and 53% are seeing commercial benefits.
- Data-related investments, particularly in advanced analytics and AI, remain a top priority, with 30% of banks ranking these technologies among their top three priorities for 2024
