By 2008, Celent anticipates that European banks will generate as much as 1.4 billion euros annually thanks to opportunities made available by e-government services.

E-government is shifting gears in Europe. The shift in e-gov to the provision of transactional services is changing the way citizens and businesses interact with their governments. These changes are providing opportunities and threats to the banking industry in Europe, the latter mainly in the form of increasing the cost of doing business by demanding investment in new technologies and by making existing systems redundant.

n a new report, "The Role of Banks in E-Government in Europe: Why Banks Should Care About E-Gov," Celent provides an extensive overview of the role banks can and are playing in European e-government initiatives. The report explains in detail why banks need to look at this development now, what type of services they can provide, and how big the associated revenue opportunities are.

"As most European countries have now signed into law a national version of the European Directive on electronic signatures, many are looking to roll out electronic identity cards carrying digital certificates in order to comply with these laws. Unfortunately many governments seem to overlook the critical factors that can make transactional e-government a success," according to Alex Brutin, Celent analyst and author of the report. "Banks therefore need to keep a close eye on e-gov initiatives to gain a good vantage point on the probable outcome and on what investment, if any, should be made."