Nigeria Excluded, Finance Sector Spurs Mobility, Analytics Investments

IT spending by financial institutions in the big four markets of the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE, and Turkey, is set for strong year-on-year growth of 10.8% in 2014, according to the latest insights from global advisory services firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

Spurred by investments in the emerging 3rd Platform technologies, total IT spending in this space is set to reach $4.3 billion in 2014.

“The finance sector has always driven the innovative use of ICT technologies across other verticals,” said Jebin George, a senior research analyst for vertical markets at IDC Middle East, Turkey, and Africa. “This drive for innovation through IT remains the top priority for CIOs in the sector and is resulting in strong investment in 3rd Platform technologies like Big Data analytics, cloud, and mobility as CIOs increasingly realize the transformative capabilities of these solutions on the way business is conducted.”

More than one-third of the MEA finance sector CIOs who took part in IDC’s Annual Middle East and Africa CIO Survey 2014 indicated that they have plans to invest in various 3rd Platform technologies over the next two years, with enterprise mobility, Big Data and analytics, and private cloud computing proving the most popular.

However, concerns over security are also growing, with the majority of the respondents considering all 3rd Platform technologies to be difficult to secure.

Such concerns will only serve to buoy IT-related investments by financial institutions in the region’s big four economies, with IDC expecting IT spending by banking, insurance, and securities and investment services firms in Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE, and Turkey to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.0% over the next five years to total $5.7 billion in 2018.

IDC recently released two research reports outlining the IT spending and investment plans of financial institutions in the MEA region.

The ‘Middle East and Africa Finance Vertical 2013–2018 IT Spending Guide’ (IDC #CEMA21508, September 2014) provides a detailed overview of IT spending during the 2013–2018 period for the three finance sub-verticals of banking, insurance, and securities and investment services across nine technology categories and four countries.

The second research document, ‘Middle East and Africa Finance Sector 3rd-Platform Technology Adoption and Investment Plans’ (IDC #CEMA21496, September 2014), highlights the emerging strategic initiatives and technology priorities of the MEA finance sector, and focuses in particular on the current adoption trends and future deployment plans for 3rd Platform technologies – namely enterprise mobility, Big Data and analytics, cloud computing, and social media.