MENA banking IT spend to hit $13.1 billion in 2014

Banking and securities companies in the Middle East and North Africa are on pace to spend approximately $13.1 billion on IT products and services in 2014, an increase of 2.4 percent over 2013 revenue of nearly $12.8 billion, according to Gartner.

This forecast includes spending by banking organisations on internal IT services, including personnel, IT services, software, data centre technologies, devices and telecom services.

Telecom services will be the largest segment in overall IT spending in the banking and securities market at $5.7 billion in 2014. This segment is forecast to increase 0.8 percent compared to 2013.

Software and IT services are the fastest growing segments with 9.7 and 8.4 percent increases in 2014, largely due to the expansion strategies of banks across the region and to modernisation and replacement projects of the back-office that require much consulting and system integration.

Outsourcing is also picking up, as one of the fastest growing segments within IT services.

“Outsourcing is still very buoyant in this market which is discovering it,” said Vittorio D’Orazio, Research Director, Gartner. “The Middle East and Northern Africa markets are not close to the maturity levels experienced in some mature markets, such as the US or UK, but are growing. Business process outsourcing (BPO) continues to have a solid growth at 12.7 percent in 2014, with increasing focus on horizontal BPO services.”