French bank Credit Agricole (CA) is set to spend €15 billion on new technology over the next four years as part of its digital transformation.
The tech budget was included as part of the bank's 2022 medium term business plan which include a new set of profit targets following better than expected results in its first quarter earnings.
The bank is now forecasting €5 billion for 2022, compared to the €4.4 billion net profit achieved in 2018. And while CA is aiming to increase its bottom line by 3% over the next four years, it is also expecting a slowdown in return on tangible equity, from 12.7% in 2018 to 11% by 2022.
CA hopes to increase both its retail and corporate banking client base in France and Italy in order to hit it higher profit targets and technology is expected to pay a key part in these efforts.
Consequently, the €15 billion IT budget will be used to keep pace with new banking habits, in particular the use of mobile and digital banking services, and to enhance the bank's operational efficiency.
In addition to the budget, CA also set out a number of tech-related goals it wishes to attain by 2022 including 90% of group entities to have a data-centric architecture in 2022 and €300m in increased IT efficiency;100% of IT staff trained in new technologies at the new IT University and 100% of emerging technologies tested for new services for business lines.