Investment banks and fund managers are still pouring money into IT, despite squandering huge sums on unsuccessful websites and e-commerce platforms, according to research by TowerGroup and the Securities Industry Association.

The boom areas are order management systems, particularly in Europe and Asia market data and content distribution securities borrowing and lending and, in the US, back office infrastructure for the T&#431 settlement project, which is aimed at reducing the time period for clearing and settling a securities transaction to one day.