Optimising middle- and back-office IT is seen as one of the main opportunities for retail banks to meet the challenges of the downturn over the next five years, according to research.

The World Retail Banking Report, published by consultancy Capgemini, the European financial management & marketing association (Efma) and Italian banking group Unicredit, says businesses see IT optimisation as the third most important opportunity for addressing recessionary challenges (45 per cent), only behind improving mortgage sales productivity and capabilities (57 per cent) and pricing and risk management (55 per cent).

Out of 200 banks polled worldwide, 61 per cent said that acceleration of processes for creating and selling new products was a major challenge to be met, so firms will be focusing on changing their IT setup to gain efficiency and speed.

As part of plans to optimise their middle- and back-office, almost one in 10 banks polled aim to develop multi-country operations over the next five years, which suggests that offshoring and outsourcing are seen as important instruments.

Use of remote channels such as the web and call centres was another promising prospect mentioned by the banks surveyed.

Around 36 per cent of the respondents claim such resources can be used for business advantage and nearly 40 per cent said they intend to develop remote sales channels as a complement to their branch network.

Five to 10 per cent of retail banks aim to sell products through the internet or call centres, via the introduction of simplified offers for those channels.