More than one third of banks expect to invest in new IT by mid-2010, new Gartner research has indicated.

Almost two thirds will either keep doing “business as usual” or look for incremental efficiencies, while only two per cent of banks still expect to dramatically cut IT budgets.

Gartner research vice president Peter Redshaw told Computing: “Although the focus is still on cost control and optimisation, financial services firms have been saying recently that they are planning for growth and preparing their IT for a different business model”.