Spending on IT in the worldwide banking and securities sector is predicted to drop 2.4 per cent this year to £486 billion, according to a new analysis by Gartner.

However, the research firm added that the strengthening dollar had a big part to play in the declining figures. Against an overall global fall of 3.5 per cent across 11 industries (to a total of $2.7 trillion), the banking sector was still set to have the biggest IT budget in 2015.

The research firm also expected banks in developed markets to double their IT expenditure by 2019, to support digital and other new technology initiatives designed to sell products, service customers and reduce operational costs, such as legacy maintenance.

“As banks grapple with growth and regulation issues, while battling new financial technology competitors, they will also look to invest in data solutions, driven by availability of Big Data, analytics tools and competition from FinTech companies that rely on Big Data and analytics more to reach the right customer and analyse the risks,” explained Rajesh Kandaswamy, research director at Gartner.

“Cyber security remains an area of focus for executives in consumer banking segments, while an emerging area of interest is smart machine technology, including artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, intelligent analytics and deep learning.”

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