The survey by analyst firm Gartner reveals that digital transformation and its related technologies, such as APIs, are more important for banking than for other industries.

According to Pete Redshaw, managing vice-president at Gartner, banks and other banking and investment services organisations “clearly recognise that the status quo is not sustainable, and they must disrupt themselves before it is done to them”.

When it comes to strategic business priorities, the Gartner survey found that digital business/digital transformation is more important for banking (first priority for 26% of respondents) than for all industries (17%).

And just behind digitalisation on 25% , growth/ market share is a further key priority, followed by complementary focus areas of profit improvement and customer focus (12% and 11% respectively).

According to Gartner, banking and investment services CIOs also place a relatively high priority on the globalisation of their businesses (7%), a priority which does not make the top 10 at all for the all-industries average.

Gartner also says geographic expansion is clearly important for a business that is easier to scale over physical distances using electronic movements of money, and seeking higher growth in emerging markets.

In response to the question ‘Which technology areas do you think are most important to helping your organisation differentiate and win (achieve your mission)?’, BI/analytics topped the list with banking sector CIOs at 26% followed by digitalisation/digital marketing at 21%.

And Gartner notes that in terms of differentiating technologies, four categories stand out when compared to other industries:

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is seen as more differentiating (8%) for banking than the all-industries average (5%).
• The combination of application programming interfaces (APIs) at 4% and omnichannel/multichannel at 3% are not especially high, but they are not present at all in the all-industries top 10.
• Legacy modernisation is a top 10 item for the banking industry, but not present in the all-industries list.
• The Internet of Things (IoT) is a top-10 item for all industries (6%), but is not present for banking and investment services.

"These priorities point to a continuing tension between two opposing forces," said Redshaw.

"On the one hand, there is a need to rapidly transform the business, while, on the other hand, there is the innate inertia that arises from a huge IT estate that supports a heavily regulated industry."