Global capital markets technology spending totaled US$163 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach US$244 billion by 2028, growing at roughly 8% per year. This number encompasses internal and external spending related to software, hardware, and IT operations, across six major areas:

1. Investment banking
2. Sales and trading
3. Execution venues
4. Asset management
5. Wealth management
6. Securities services

The report finds buy-side technology spend to dwarf sell-side spend, with buy-side capital markets technology spend making up around two-thirds of the total.

Figure 1. Buy-Side Technology Spend Dwarfs Sell-Side Technology Spend

By category, external software spend – spending on vendor-provided software leads the way, at roughly US$48 billion. By region, the US and Canada together represent the largest share of spend, at over 40% of the total.

According to Opimas estimates, the biggest spenders on capital markets technology are JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley (in first and second place), followed by Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

 Figure 2. Who Spends the Most on Capital Markets Technology?

This report offers additional insight into spending, broken down in various ways. It also provides a list of the top 40 technology vendors ranked by their known and estimated capital markets software revenues, as well as a discussion of leading players’ M&A strategies.

Looking ahead, Opimas expects several themes to drive activity in the space:

• A shift towards internal software development at major financial institutions
• Slowing M&A activity to pick back up as interest rates gradually decrease
• Financial institutions to become more and more important in their role as software vendors
• Vendors to place greater focus on integrating acquired solutions to form truly end-to-end offerings