Global financial services companies are aligning their IT strategies and priorities along with the developing market and business conditions.

According to a recent study from Everest Group on the trends and future outlook of IT outsourcing in Capital Markets, the volume of large-sized, active capital markets transactions grew four-fold from 2008 to 2010. A large part of such large capital markets deals are structured around application development, ongoing enhancements, and maintenance.

Everest Group stated the key imperatives for capital markets firms today as:

• Alleviating risk and complexity caused by uncertain global economic environment and wide scale regulatory reform;

• Managing trade volatility to streamline front-office operations and modernizing the clearing and settlement function in mid- and back-office;

• Building “region-specific” expertise to drive the global growth agenda, given that capital markets’ operations across geographies are facing disparate challenges.

In terms of offshore software development, Ukraine is positioned as an unrivaled best choice with regional market-specific expertise. Financial giant Barclays Capital, for example, opened its technology center in Kyiv in 2010 and sees Ukraine as a key strategic destination within its technology growth plans.