The securities industry in the Asia-Pacific region is poised for rapid growth in the next five years. Driving the rise in securities trading are regulatory changes enabling more competition among execution venues, growing interest in Asia among Western exchanges and alternative execution venues, and institutions looking to expand operations in rapidly growing markets like India and China. This Research Note analyzes growth opportunities in the securities industry of Asian markets (including Russia and Australia due to their overall influence on the region). The Note examines how trading in the region will evolve over time and analyzes opportunities for IT vendors over 2010–15.

This TowerGroup Research Note examines emerging trends and innovations that global outsourcing providers are bringing to the financial services industry. The competitive landscape in global outsourcing is centered on creating an environment of innovation that financial services institutions can leverage in a direct and purposeful manner. In short, FSIs should expect that vendors will bring thought leadership and innovation to the services outsourced. This frees the FSI's own resources to work on higher-value functions. The continuous innovation by global outsourcing firms extends the vendor relationship beyond mere outsourcing by delivering strategic value.

Mobile remote deposit capture (RDC) for consumers has been getting attention from financial services institutions and technology vendors ever since USAA introduced its mobile RDC product in 2009. Vendors have since announced at least a half dozen new consumer-based mobile RDC products, and banks have jumped on the bandwagon. Any bank considering mobile RDC should take into account the feasibility of everyday consumer usage and the simple fact that check volume has long been declining. This TowerGroup Research Note explores the viability and the longevity of the market for consumer mobile RDC and determines whether a real market exists for this new technology.

This TowerGroup Research Note outlines the current state and future prospects for risk management across the global financial services industry. It presents TowerGroup's forecasts of global spending on risk management from three perspectives: the technical side; the traditional credit, market, and operational risk perspective; and the sourcing strategies that financial services institutions will use in advancing their risk management skills. The Note also discusses drivers of spending by global region. The report then looks to the future, beyond 2012, at the sea change that risk management will undergo as a result of market and regulatory forces just now coming into view.

Regulatory reform of the US financial services industry is now on the books in the form of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. However, the task of creating and implementing regulations in support of the law will take up to five years. The financial services industry faces huge challenges in acquiring, managing, and conforming data for regulatory reporting and obtaining value from such efforts. This TowerGroup Research Note discusses the magnitude of change in information needs facing the industry and points toward the significant rethinking about data that financial services institutions will need to do to comply with the new requirements.

The last several years have seen a proliferation of self-service online financial management applications in Web sites, many free of charge, that offer an aggregated view of personal finances through enticing graphics and rich user interfaces. This TowerGroup ViewPoint discusses how OFM tools have captured the imagination of financial service institutions and why FSIs are interested in expanding into self-service online financial planning. The ViewPoint also discusses the great opportunity that the technology of online tools represents for the planning industry despite the fact that financial planning does not translate well to a self-service model.

The perceived slow adoption of banking technology by the small business market segment has been a source of consternation for financial services institutions. However, recent trends in the general population's overall usage of technology and the maturity of banking solutions designed for the small business end-user (primarily by very large banks) have resulted in an emerging picture that is very different from the conventional wisdom on the topic. This TowerGroup Research Note analyzes small business owners' attitudes toward the adoption of alternative delivery channels and offers guidance on what this information means for banks' strategies for growing those channels going forward.

The race for technological and business intelligence superiority is driving an increase in IT spending on analytics. This Research Note discusses the myriad purposes and functions now being served by analytics, including customer experience, acquisition, and retention; financial and economic projections; and improving day-to-day operations. Analytics is now central to managing the business better based on fact-driven intelligence. At the same time, technology vendors are expanding their products and services, aligning with other vendors of upstream and downstream business technologies. Some have acquired pure-play analytics vendors to enhance their other products and services.

The commercial cards business has been in a steady growth mode in North America for two decades, driven mostly by programs in the United States but also in the past five years in Canada. Since 2000, the business model has been replicated and expanded into all global regions, with the most success being realized in Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. This TowerGroup Research Note reviews the impact of the global recession on the most recent large-market results for commercial credit cards in the three major regions mentioned, then projects forward through 2013. Commercial prepaid and debit cards have been or will be covered in other TowerGroup reports.

A common perception holds that banks have benefited from the rise in savings rates that coincided with the economic downturn. Consumers rediscovered the virtue of frugality, and the collapse in asset prices prompted them to seek guaranteed returns. It may seem reasonable to conclude that these trends lead to higher deposits and ultimately to lower-cost capital and higher profits for banks, but the data tell a different story. This Research Note discusses the negative relationship between the US national savings rate and bank profit and highlights implications for retail bank strategy in the face of an upward trend in savings that is expected to continue for some time to come.