Banks across the world are set to significantly increase spending on new payment technology in 2016, according to a study by analyst house Ovum.
Driven by increased emphasis on security, changing consumer behaviour, and new technologies - such as blockchain, mobile payments, and real-time payment transactions, almost two in three (61%) banks globally will increase their spending on payment technology next year.
Most tellingly, the proportion of banks reporting significant increases in payments’ spending has leaped from near 10% last year to almost 30%.
Ovum's conclusions are drawn from a survey of CIOs and other senior IT decision-makers in over 60 countries and processed data from around 6500 interviews in 17 industries.
Gilles Ubaghs, senior analyst within Ovum’s financial services technology team, comments: “Investment levels in payments have been high in recent years, driven by the need to deploy new payment services, cope with the overall rise in electronic transaction volumes, and replace ageing legacy infrastructure. 2016 will see an increase in this trend.”
As ever, spending on security is top of mind, although new business opportunities in immediate payments and the adoption of biometric technologies are also stretching budgets. Nearly 65% of banks view immediate payments as an opportunity across every business category, while one-in-three cite biometrics as a priority for the coming year as well as a focus on using additional information such as location data during transactions.