Financial institutions in the big four markets of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) — Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE, and Turkey are set to increase their spending on IT, the region being ready for strong year-on-year growth of 10.8% in 2014.
This is according to the latest insights from global advisory services firm International Data Corporation (IDC) which adds that spurred by investments in the emerging 3rd Platform technologies, total IT spending in this space is set to reach $4.3 billion in 2014.
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.
“The finance sector has always driven the innovative use of ICT technologies across other verticals,” says 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,” he added.