Despite the global financial crisis, spending on IT by trading firms will hold steady over the next year, according to a survey from Sybase and Financial Insights.
The survey of over 200 buy-side and sell-side firms shows some areas - notably risk and compliance - will actually see increased technology spending this year.
Buy-side firms expect moderate increases in IT spending on credit risk, compliance, data centre consolidation, security, improved customer data and customer relationship management.
Respondents from the sell-side expect to increase IT spending in more areas, including market risk, security and fraud management tools, compliance, enterprise SOA, server virtualisation, network management, security, collaboration technologies and improved CRM.
More generally, two of every three buy-side firms, say they are actively planning changes to their businesses as a result of the crisis. A total of 80% of sell-side firms are making changes to their businesses.
Sybase argues the economic crisis is leading trading firms to invest in technology to gain a clearer view of the markets and business activities in real-time.
Both the buy-side and sell-side are looking to improve internal knowledge sharing, customer experience, risk identification and their ability to comply with regulations.
Sean O'Dowd, capital markets senior analyst, Financial Insights, says: "While capital markets firms are confronted with an extremely difficult market environment, the study's evidence suggests that they are diligently working to position themselves for future success."