Low IT spending by banks: Reason for concern?

We collect data on IT spending as reported by banks directly supervised by the ECB in their 2020 annual reports. Slightly more than 50% of these banks report their IT spending. Our analysis, using data for those banks that do report IT expenditure, suggests that the distribution of IT expenses as share of operating income, operating expenses or total assets is uneven. We identify banks that score low on one or more of these ratios. It turns out that this group is very diverse. We argue that these banks are not necessarily in the danger zone with regard to future profitability as high IT spending is no guarantee for good performance.