With the financial markets industry continuing to drive out costs whilst pursuing strategic projects for future growth, keeping up-to-date with end-user opinion has never been more important for technology vendors. This report presents the views of 100 business & technology decision-makers, drilling down into IT strategy drivers & pinpointing key investment areas for next year.

• Based on more than 100 interviews with North American and European financial markets institutions
• Coverage of the asset management, investment and securities services, corporate/commercial banking and trading/brokerage sectors
• Research includes IT strategy, risk management, regulatory compliance, architecture & IT operations, outsourcing/offshoring & core processing systems

With income growth uncertain across most financial markets sectors, the overlook for technology remains corresponding uncertain growth with recovery as seen in last half of 2004. However institutions have realised that investment is vital for sustainability and maintaining competitive par, thus opportunities will present themselves in 2005/6.

Overall, we expect financial markets institutions to continue on their trajectory of balanced strategies. The current economic climate is one of improving conditions but with pressure on cost control. In these conditions, it is expected that most institutions favor balanced strategies keeping lean whilst selectively pursuing growth opportunities

Regulatory emphasis differs by sector due to geographic region. North America is dealing with SOX and US Patriot Act, whilst a large part of European institution's IT spend is focused on Basel II.

• Understand rapidly changing trends in end-user opinion to formulate your go-to-market strategy
• Discern important sector-specific variances in optimizing your overall product proposition
• Use robust primary data to plan your 2005/2006 strategy with confidence