More than three-quarters of the 60 firms canvassed by the pollsters report having data management programmes underway, with 52% moving towards a global centralised EDM structure. In addition, regulatory compliance and risk management are the top drivers for EDM in almost half of the firms.

Financial institutions are in the formative stages of implementing their EDM strategies, says the EDM Council, but have not yet achieved their long-term objectives on either data centralisation or integration into downstream applications.

Nonetheless, the survey confirms that the financial industry is making significant investment in data management and budgets are rising across the industry.

"The challenge is less about obtaining funding for EDM initiatives and more about using the money wisely for implementation," says Predrag Dizdarevic, co-author of the report and managing partner, element22. "Spending for integration-related activities is growing rapidly and now accounts for a rising portion of total EDM budgets."

The demand for industry-wide standardisation is cited as a high priority among most data management professionals across the industry. The overall level of standardisation is low, but a majority of firms are in the process of addressing this gap, says EDM council managing director Michael Atkin.

"Firms recognise the essential nature of data content standards for internal alignment and data comparability," he says. "Without exception, firms with experience in EDM integration understand the value of both architectural and semantic standards and want them implemented as soon as possible."