Singapore-based banks have started to readjust their technology investment plans, reflecting a more positive outlook for the country's financial sector, according to the latest study by IDC Financial Insights Asia-Pacific.

The banks' plans for 2010 signal the return to long-term transformative projects that require significant investments in IT dollars, as well as in time, personnel and IT management resources.

The report is based on inputs from senior IT and line-of-business executives from 15 Singapore-based banks who attended the recent IDC Financial Insights Banking Roundtable, as well as follow-up research on IT spending undertaken by IDC Financial Insights analysts in the region.

IDC Financial Insights notes that these re-emerging projects will allow banks to revisit the use of customer experience in building the banking business.

Along with drastic economic conditions in 2008 and 2009, banks focused on protecting existing customer bases. Amid the crisis, it was imperative for banks to more effectively understand customers within the current base, to have a comprehensive view of the customers' existing product holdings and interactions, and to see the drivers of cost and revenues within these relationships.

The report also points out that small, representative banking units in Singapore will invest in discrete solution areas ranging from connectivity to their home core banking systems, remittance, anti-money laundering (AML) to compliance. By virtue of low investment bases, these smaller outfits will show highest IT investment jumps in the market.