IT spending in China’s capital markets is growing, but slowly. Deregulation and new business areas provide opportunities for both financial institutions and technology vendors.

Regulation will greatly affect China’s capital markets. The regulatory trends are openness, new products, and more business from overseas. Growth at proprietary trading firms and asset management firms, new system requirements (such as support for derivatives), and internationalization are leading more domestic financial institutions to adopt systems from foreign vendors.

In the report Technology Trends in China’s Capital Markets, Celent examines the market size, regulation, IT spending trends, and the vendor landscape.

One area of potential investment is cloud computing.

“There are some cloud-based and BPO applications in the securities industry, such as the services offered by Shanghai Stock Exchange. Such services are useful for securities companies in areas like trading and investment analysis,” says Hua Zhang, an analyst with Celent’s Asian Financial Services Group and author of the report. “Though cloud-based applications are acceptable for institutions, there are some barriers. For example, the data center should be located in China.”