According to Gartner Inc., banking and securities companies in India are expected to spend Rs 462 billion on IT products and services in 2014, an increase of nearly 9.8 per cent over 2013. In 2013, this vertical is expected to spend Rs 421 billion.

This forecast includes spending by financial institutions on internal IT services (including personnel), IT services, software, data center technologies, devices and telecom services.

Moreover, as per the firm, spending on IT services will constitute a large chunk of the budgets of banking and security firms (at Rs 149 billion) in 2014. This will be owing to the continuous focus on the financial services sector by IT services providers, and it is forecast to grow at the second-fastest growth rate at 14.5 per cent compared to 2013.

Software is expected to be the fastest growing segment, with 15.2 per cent growth in 2014. In the software segment, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management and customer relationship management will exceed the 20 per cent growth landmark at 21.5 per cent, while desktop software follows at 19.3 percent.

Internal services (including IT personnel) is projected to be the third-fastest growing segment at 14.3 per cent in 2014, largely due to the strategies undertaken by Indian banks for expansion across the country, especially in rural areas.