This report, based on more than 100 interviews with North American and European financial markets institutions, finds that global financial markets IT spend will increase slightly or remain relatively flat, with almost 40% of respondents indicating no change in their IT budget. Institutions are cautiously positioning themselves for a slight upturn, but remain largely in a defensive position.

Falling margins in payments are increasing the pressure on banks to improve efficiency and STP. This report examines key business and technology drivers in European wholesale payments processing, and provides insight into banks' strategies of re-engineering their underlying IT infrastructure. It explores the market for packaged solutions, outlines the key implications for vendors, and provides comprehensive forecasts for payments processing IT spend in European wholesale banking to 2006.

Focusing on Western Europe, this brief examines the key business drivers currently affecting the payment operations function in wholesale banking. Taking a process-centric view, it explores the options faced by banks to address issues of falling margins and operational efficiency, such as transformation, offshoring and outsourcing. Offering an in depth discussion of these initiatives in wholesale payment operations, the report provides IT spending forecasts in wholesale payment operations.

Although core systems are now higher on the C-level agenda than they have been for several years, major European banks continue to baulk at the prospect of major replacement projects. The key obstacles to replacing core systems are a lack of business case and time pressures. With incremental development likely to form the basis of core systems strategy going forward, banks must move beyond hard-coded legacy systems and embrace component-based, process- driven architectures. This report will allow organizations to benchmark their competitive position and understand the factors that will determine future success.

Increased competitive pressures, tightening margins and the decline of traditional growth engines have combined to increased the focus of banks on transforming core loans processes. Examining the key recent developments in US retail banking loans origination and servicing, the report focuses on consumer loans and mortgages and assesses the key drivers for renewed investment in this space as well as key success factors for vendors. The report discusses a range of different technology implications, including branch renewal, process transformation and document imaging, and provides the latest forecasts for spending on loans origination and servicing solutions.

After experiencing strong revenue and profit growth in the past several years, the US retail banking industry faces a number of challenges going forward. This report discusses these issues and analyzes the implications for both the business and IT strategies of retail banking. Identifing the key trends and drivers motivating US retail banks to spend on IT, it provides Datamonitor's forecasts on retail banking IT spend from 2003 to 2006 and reviews the vendor landscape.

Covering the strategic issues relating to the business continuity planning and disaster market in Western European financial services, the report looks into the vendor dynamics of the main European players in the provision of availability services. It elucidates the specific drivers for business continuity in FSIs within the context of changing regulatory and IT environments and examines business continuity implications for business and IT investment in areas such as STP.

In addressing the continual changes to regulatory reporting, banks have adopted a piecemeal approach that is both costly and error-prone. In recent years, with compliance lead times shortening, FSIs can no longer continue taking a fragmented approach: a scenario-based approach is required to define compliance business requirements. The report investigates two key questions. What are the considerations, issues and pitfalls that financial instiutions should be taking into account? And what are the things vendors playing in this space need to heed?

Credit risk lies at the heart of the Basel II, driving changes for economic & regulatory capital. It is also one of the main internal drivers for improved risk management. With pressures mounting & momentum shifting towards IT implementation, what are the key issues and opportunities? This report will provide insight into strategic implications and opportunities based on evolving market, competitor and end-user dynamics. It outlines the challenges and issues that financial institutions are facing in their implementation efforts.

Covering both the non-life and L&P insurance markets in Europe, the report drills down on the latest trends in the European Insurance technology market. It includes an in depth analysis of the business and strategic drivers for investment in insurance technology and key technology investment areas. Furthermore, it provides a discussion of the latest trends in the insurance technology vendor market as well as the latest spending forecasts for European insurance technology, by country, source, activity and line-of-business.

Nearing the mid-year point of 2003, both P&C and Life insurance companies still find themselves recovering from recent equity market meltdowns, non-cyclical catastrophes, and up-ticks in claim volume. This has left insurers with an increased emphasis on economizing across the board, ranging from operations to closing unprofitable or non-strategic lines of business. The report examines IT spending in insurance through 2006, segmented by source, and identifies both business and technology drivers. It provides an in-depth analysis on the state of the insurance industry including a delve into legislation, market and financial influences, and sector specific woes.