2008 Financial Services Outlook Delves Into Hot Banking Trends

Bank Systems & Technology polled a cross-section of industry executives to come up with a preview of IT spending priorities and delved into some of the technologies expected to have the most impact on the business in the coming year.

In this environment of real-time and speed-to-market emphasis, IT budgets and strategies still are planned relatively far in advance. So there's added pressure on bank technology executives and the partners and solutions providers with which they work to anticipate and respond to sudden market changes and industry upheaval (you know, little things like credit crises and CEO turnover).

The risk is that IT investments can get sidetracked and customer- and growth-oriented initiatives become derailed. It's a tough balancing act, further complicated by CIOs' efforts to try to figure out how their plans compare not only with those of their peers and competitors within the banking industry, but also to the strategies of their counterparts in the securities/capital markets and insurance industries.

In an effort to rationalize the process, Bank Systems & Technology, along with its sibling brands in CMP Technology's Financial Technology Group, went to the experts across the financial services industry to create the 2008 Financial Services Outlook that appears in this issue. Our entire editorial team — BS&T's Nancy Feig and Maria Bruno-Britz; Anthony O'Donnell and Nathan Conz from Insurance & Technology; and Penny Crosman, Ivy Schmerken and Melanie Rodier from Wall Street & Technology — collaborated to report on what technologies and trends will be hot (and maybe not so hot) in financial services in 2008.

We polled a cross-section of industry executives to come up with a preview of IT spending priorities and delved into some of the technologies expected to have the most impact on the business in the coming year. The outlook also identifies several of the challenges different banking business segments are likely to face, as well as some of the executives, companies and industry players we think will be in the headlines in 2008.

One thing you don't need to be a psychic to figure out: There's going to be more scrutiny and demand for deliverables for any kind of technology initiative, whether it has to do with customer experience, mobile banking or risk management. To get a sense of how financial services companies are going to cope, read on.

Katherine Burger is Editorial Director of Bank Systems & Technology and Insurance & Technology, members of UBM TechWeb's InformationWeek Financial Services. She assumed leadership of Bank Systems & Technology in 2003 and of Insurance & Technology in 1991. In addition to ... View Full Bio