The quietly booming financial IT sector in Ireland

Global technology budgets within financial services have shrunk this year, which ironically has worked to Ireland's advantage. A focus on buying in cheaper third-party systems (rather than building in-house) has provided a boon to the country's financial software vendors, while banks have also begun to view Ireland as a development hub.

Part of the reason for this is that IDA Ireland, the body which encourages foreign direct investment, has been enticing software development firms to our shores throughout 2009 across various industries.

In terms of financial services, Citigroup has said it intends to recruit for a further 25 tech roles within its research and development centre in Dublin. Ireland can to some extent be considered a beneficiary of the bank's $1bn global IT cost-cutting exercise.

Ireland is also home to financial services software vendors, such as Murex, Corvil, Norkom Technologies, Realex Payments and Cognotec, which have been steadily adding to their ranks this year.

If you open the catchment area to the isle of Ireland, the opportunities suddenly look plentiful. NYSE Euronext has plans to create 400 jobs in Belfast, for instance, while Citigroup and Allstate Corporation have been recruiting this year.

"We've been aggressively hiring this year and are still looking to recruit," adds Fearghal McGovern, business development manager at Belfast-based First Derivatives. "On the consulting side, we look for experience using third-party products, like Murex, Calypso, Wall Street Systems and Flextrade. On the development side, we want Java and C# skills, but they need to be allied with good capital markets knowledge - this can be difficult to find."

Clara Gough, manager of the IT division at recruiters Robert Walters in Dublin, says the loss of large, project driven work from domestic banks has hit Ireland's IT in finance sector.

"However, what we have seen financial software vendors both continue to be attracted to the Irish market grow their existing operations here," she says.

Still, the likes IBM, Bentley Systems, Facebook, Sajan and Citrix Systems are all expanding their Irish operations. Fears have been raised that financial services might struggle against other industries to attract local technical talent.

"The current issue we face is that a number of non-financial IT firms are also bolstering their teams. Given the problems facing financial services recently, combined with a limited talent pool in Dublin, it's a challenge to attract technical candidates to the current job opportunities," says Andrew Crawford, director at Lincoln Search and Selection in Dublin.