Financial Insights Releases Annual Top 10 Strategic IT Initiatives for Asia/Pacific Capital Markets

<p>Singapore and Hong Kong - March 1, 2006 - Leading independent research and advisory firm, Financial Insights, an IDC company, today announced the release of its annual report identifying the Top 10 IT initiatives that will have key strategic importance for capital market institutions in Asia/Pacific in 2006. The report, entitled "Top 10 Strategic Initiatives in Asia/Pacific Capital Markets for 2006: Overarching Themes of Automation and Execution", describes these initiatives, examines why they will have an impact in 2006 spending, and explains why they should be on the minds of business and technology executives at capital market institutions and vendors serving the industry. The first three of the 2006 Top 10 initiatives are shown in the following table.</p>
<p>Table 1: Top 3 Strategic Capital/Market Initiatives for Asia/Pacific, 2006 (by rank)</p>
<p>1. Trade cycle automation and Straight Through Processing (STP)
Drivers of STP adoption in 2006 include: expanding capital market volumes, cost savings, improved processing lead-time, and increased regulation. Automation from STP allows for faster discovery and mitigation of errors and reduced financial risk for the firm. 2006 will witness more institutions jumping into the STP bandwagon.</p>
<p>2. Enterprise data integration
A robust data foundation is the lifeblood of a financial institution's activities. Today's landscape of highly fragmented data will invariably lead to compromised information quality. The need for information aggregation is becoming more acute and the development of data management strategies that consolidate access to customer and transaction information will be ongoing in 2006.</p>
<p>3. Service Oriented Architectures
SOAs use industry standard software to integrate multiple systems and applications in a way that is efficient and collaborative. Asia is still very early in the SOA adoption curve and organizations need siloed business and IT divisions to collaborate to fully realize SOAs' value.</p>
<p>(Source: Financial Insights, 2006)</p>
<p>Li-May Chew, CFA, senior research manager for Financial Insights Asia/Pacific and author of the report states, "Priorities this year correspond with the broad themes of automation, integration, and efficient execution. These perspectives essentially marry the technology and business strategy angle of issues that should be foremost in the minds of senior executives in capital market institution."</p>
<p>"Organizations that concentrate on their operational strengths, aggressively set implementation strategies, use trusted vendor solutions to plug functionality gaps, and focus on strategy execution will emerge as winners in 2006 even as competitors watch from the sidelines," Li-May concludes.</p>
<p>Financial Insights' Top 10 strategic IT initiatives integrates a mix of actionable, present-day value propositions that have either mandatory or high payoff potential with initiatives having future payoff potential for mainstream institutions. For more information on obtaining this report FIN1732 – "Top 10 Strategic Initiatives in Asia/Pacific Capital Markets for 2006: Overarching Themes of Automation and Execution", (Financial Insights, February 2006) - please contact: sales@financial-insights.com.</p>
<p>About Financial Insights, an IDC Company</p>
<p>Financial Insights provides independent research, custom consulting, and detailed multiclient studies on the technology issues and challenges facing the financial services industry. Our global research covers topics of strategic importance to corporate and retail banks, insurance carriers, asset management firms, securities and brokerage firms. Our local practices in Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Canada add an in-depth regional viewpoint. Financial Insights, an IDC company, is headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, USA. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading IT media, research, and exposition company. Visit www.financial-insights.com for more information.</p>
<p>Regional press enquiries can be directed to:</p>
<p>ASIA PACIFIC:
Holly Fung,
Marketing &amp; Events Executive,
IDC Asia/Pacific ,
+852-2905-4225,
hfung@idc.com</p>
<p>GLOBAL:
Deborah Stark,
Director of Marketing,
Financial Insights, an IDC Company,
+1-508-935-4318,
dstark@financial-insights.com</p>
<p>If you would like further information or to purchase IDC research, please contact Gary Clarke, IDC Associate VP of Sales via email gclarke@idc.com or phone 02 9925 2226.</p>
<p>For press enquiries please contact:
Catherin Bennett,
Director, IT Management Programme ,
Email: cbennett@idc.com,
Phone: 61 2 9925 2259,</p>

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