IT spending by banking and securities firms in mature Asia/Pacific markets will reach $67.1 billion in 2017, an increase of 5.4% from 2016, according to Gartner.

Gartner defines the mature Asia/Pacific region as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.

In US dollar terms, Japan is the largest market, but New Zealand will have the highest growth rate in 2017 at 6.4%t, followed by Japan at 5.6%.

The software segment will grow the fastest at 8.5% in 2017, as firms in the banking and securities industry invest more in applications, infrastructure and vertical-specific software. Applications is growing the fastest in this category contributing 12.4% growth in 2017.

Moutusi Sau, principal research analyst at Gartner says: "The banking and securities industry is focused on investing in advanced data and analytics, as new tools like artificial intelligence are becoming popular in this industry."