The financial services industry is well-known for standing at the forefront of technological change, but years of old legacy IT systems have bogged down banking teams and slowed the time it takes to develop and distribute new products. The emerging technology phenomenon, known as "cloud computing", is set to change all this, says a new report.

According to the report published yesterday by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a UK think tank, cloud computing will allow financial services business to break free from the shackles of old legacy IT, generating some €183bn and creating a staggering 207,000 jobs.