Which banks are still big spenders on technology?
It's no secret that IT budgets within investment banks are shrinking this year for the first time since anybody bothered following them, but it's interesting to note after the latest round of reporting who's spending the most.
JPMorgan is in the unique position of spending more on 'technology, communications and equipment expense' than this time last year - $1.15bn, or a 12% uptick year-on-year.
This is particularly ironic as the bank said the 1,000-2,000 redundancies announced in March would primarily affect those in technology and infrastructure.
Until recently, Goldman Sachs was fairly bullish in its IT spend, having spend $192m in the second quarter of 2008. Now, however, it's slightly more muted, with IT spend shrinking by 10% to stand at $172m. In January there was speculation that it was mulling further redundancies that would hit IT staff.
Citigroup has made no secret of the fact that it's looking to pare back IT costs, and is aiming to save some $1bn this year alone. This is reflected in its second quarter results, with technology costs shrinking by 24% year-on-year to stand at $1.15bn.
Morgan Stanley doesn't break out technology costs (the closest being 'information processing and communications', which was up 6% on last year). However, technology staff were particularly badly affected in the last round of job cuts.
Credit Suisse also doesn't reveal IT costs.
Neither, sadly, does Bank of America, which has of course taken on Merrill's sprawling technology infrastructure. Suffice to say, it's probably not great, considering John Thain's announcement in October last year that it intended to save $7bn through the integration - primarily in technology.
