IT spending by banking and securities firms in the mature Asia/Pacific region will reach $22 billion dollars in 2016, a 0.47 percent increase from 2015, according to Gartner.

The forecast - which includes spending on internal IT services (including personnel), IT services, software, data center technologies, devices and telecom services - covers Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.

In US dollar terms, Singapore will have the highest growth rate in 2016 at 3.2%, followed by New Zealand at 1.3%.

Software will grow the fastest at 6.3%, as firms in the banking and securities industry invest more in online, mobile, analytics and data solutions, says the analyst house.

Digital transformation initiatives will fuel spending on mobile/online and data analytics services as well as investment and partnerships with fintech startups.

A recent report from Accenture reported a surge in investment in Asia Pacific fintech firms throughout 2015, quadrupling to $4.3 billion from about $880 million in all of 2014.

"There is a push towards using digital technologies to achieve revenue growth," says Rajesh Kandaswamy, research director at Gartner. "This is not only in using online and mobile channels, but for better use of data and analytics across all channels."