Celent Expects IT Spending at European Banks to Exceed EU44.6 bn in 2004

This year, the leading European bank in terms of IT spending will be HSBC, with an estimated IT budget of EU3billion. Deutsche Bank is second with EU2.6 billion allocated to IT, a position it shares with UBS, which has allocated the same amount to IT. ABN Amro is fourth, with an estimated EU2.2 billion budgeted for IT. These four banks are members of the small club of European banks that are expected to spend more than EU2 billion on IT in 2004. Despite the economic improvement expected for 2004, European banks will invest less in IT this year than in the past 4 years. In fact, the European banking industry will invest 5% less in IT in 2004 than in 2003, spending a total of EU44,601 million.