Asia-Pacific is the biggest growth engine for the banking industry and is expected to account for 39% of global banking revenue growth from 2012 to 2020. This growth may be accompanied by decreasing profitability, partly due to increasingly intense competition but largely because many banks' operating models are reaching their limits in efficient scalability and flexibility in the face of change. This is because research shows that many Asia-Pacific banks do not invest enough in IT, a major catalyst for growth in the banking industry that supports such things as scalability, productivity growth, and risk management. The experts feel that the other investments that the banks are making are not effective enough to propel growth and business efficiency. The situation is worse for Asia-Pacific's emerging markets because IT spending's relative share of operating expense has decreased for a low 9.4% to an even lower 3.1%.
