Cutbacks will require banks to work more creatively with their marketing ingredients.
Cutbacks will require banks to work more creatively with their marketing ingredients.
UK research firm Datamonitor predicts that bank IT budgets will fall $40 billion worldwide in 2009, with budgets in the UK being particularly hard-hit.
The report, “Impact of Financial Crisis on Technology Spending in Banking,” says that bank IT budgets in the UK will contract by nearly 7% but only 2% worldwide.
This is actually good news, according to industry watchers. “…the findings are not as negative as might have been expected,” Daniel Okubo, a technology analyst with Datamonitor and the report’s author, told IT Web (see full article: IT Budgets Not So Weak). “Despite the rise in the proportion of IT budgets that are remaining flat, there are still a sizable proportion of enterprises planning to increase IT expenditure,” he said.
What’s the impact on marketers who are trying to bring new technology, such as digital signage, into the branches? According to an article by Jo Best at Silicon.com (see full article: Banking IT budgets plunge):
Some areas of spending will defy financial services’ spending crunch: in-branch tech will remain resilient as banks attempt to maintain service levels following job cuts.
Given this, bank marketers might do well to consider how their new digital signage systems can go beyond displaying brand spots, news and local weather and actually enhance customer service and satisfcation in tangible ways. Of course, we have a few ideas on how to get that done…
Photo credit: rmatei
