The industry can’t decide whether investment in IT is going up or down – at least according to our last quick poll. One third of banks believe they will spend more, a third think spending will be the same and a third expect further contraction in spending.

This concurs with the findings of many IT analysis companies who are forecasting a long term increase in IT spending in the capital markets (with some expecting very large growth), while short term cost control will remain tight. Despite a huge improvement in profitability, markets have only slowly recovered and success has been generated by driving down costs.

Institutions are now in flux. Can they exploit market recovery without increasing costs? According to our poll, the market is split on how best to gear IT spending for future market conditions.