August 2, 2013 - Large North American financial institutions will spend $73.8 billion on IT improvements across software, hardware and professional services next year, a two per cent rise on 2013, according to a Technology Business Research report.

Based on surveys and interviews with IT and business execs at 201 finance firms, the TNR report claims that investments are moving from 'run the bank' policy to change the bank.

This means that big firms are upping their investment in multichannel banking and data management. Respondents expect to spend an average of $1.5 million next year on mobile and online banking projects and nearly $900,000 on self-service tech.

Breaking down the 'run the bank' spending, about $7 billion will be spent on professional services, $5.2 billion on infrastructure, $4.6 billion on business applications, $4.1 billion on databases and middleware, $3.8 billion on systems management, $3.3 billion on business intelligence and analytics, and $3.2 billion on productivity apps.

Allan Krans, senior analyst, TBR, says: "Although budget increases are modest, we see strong commitment and funding for IT projects that positively impact the customer experience occurring during the next 18 months."

When it comes to picking IT partners, the survey reveals that banks favour vendors established in the financial services industry and with which they have pre-existing relationships to implement the required improvements.

According to one IT exec interviewed by TBR: "Our IT investment strategy is increasingly becoming more practical; we are looking at new business models that we do not run fully in-house and on-premises."