March 4, 2013 - Nearly two thirds of Asia Pacific banks expect to see their risk management technology budgets grow this year, according to research from IDC Financial Insights.

Of 40 chief risk officers and their deputies, from banks in 11 countries, 62% say that their IT budget will rise this year, with more than a third projecting growth of at least seven per cent. Another third say their budgets will be flat, with just 2.7% expecting a fall.

Respondents say that credit analytics technology is the most important area for investment, followed by enterprise data management and enterprise risk dashboards.

Meanwhile, more than three quarters of those polled think that risk management vendors could possibly (though not necessarily) provide a greater level of analytic ability than could be found internally and, as such, are increasingly open to outsourcing to risk management specialists.

Nonetheless, regional banks are not rushing to cloud-based risk systems yet - only 31% of the surveyed are sufficiently comfortable to even consider this possibility at the present moment, citing data privacy and security regulations as core inhibitors.

Li-May Chew, associate research director, Asia Pacific financial advisory service, IDC, says: "As banks across Asia Pacific scramble to remain ahead of the risk management curve, plug gaps within their risk management framework, and exploit the disruptive third platform technologies of Big Data and analytics, cloud computing, social business, and mobility, 2013 will witness their CROs continuing to elevate risk management to a high strategic priority internally."