Banks are pouring money into risk IT, but could face a dearth of skilled technologists in the sector to help them fulfil their expansion plans…when they eventually get underway.

Research released by IBM and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma), which took in responses from 500 financial firms, revealed that banks were increasingly focusing on risk management.

“Almost universally there is a recognition that further investment in risk-modelling is required in order to enable greater risk transparency, not only as a business imperative, but also in anticipation of future potential regulatory requirements,” says Ian Hurst, general manager, IBM Financial Services Sector.

This increased investment will eventually lead to a skills shortage, and an inevitable “war for talent”, reckons Hurst.

But, in spite of a lot of promise, rafts of jobs have yet to appear on the market, says James Richmond, sales director at recruiters Cititec: “It’s not silly season yet. Banks are definitely spending money on credit, market and operational risk technology. New positions are being signed off, and headcount is being agreed, but really the recruitment in this space is just taking off.”

On the purely technical side, banks are either looking for a knowledge of third-party systems like Murex or Calypso or, if the systems are being built in-house, C# and C++ skills.

However, banks are currently thinking about how to go forward with risk strategies and are looking at taking on senior level people, says Abigail Waudby, manager within the technology division at recruiters Project Partners.

“There are a lot of technologists with risk on their CV, but banks need more than that. They need people with a strategic understanding of risk, who can synchronise credit, market and operational risk – and these are few and far between. At the developer level, I would expect a lot of roles to emerge in the first quarter of next year.”

A separate study by Microsoft says that the credit crisis is driving Wall Street towards high-performance computing (HPC) risk solutions.