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銀行業資訊科技支出之價值攸關性
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in the 2008 annual report.
4
Correspondingly, the IT expenditure has been one of the major
items in banks’ non-interest operating expenses, and some leading banks regularly invest
considerable amounts of money in IT-related spending.
In contrast to the practical observation of the importance of IT spending, academic
literature does not provide consistent evidence on the correlation between IT spending and
firm performance. Although some studies argue that investing in IT enhances profitability
(e.g., Barua, Kriebel, and Mukhopadhyay, 1995; Dewan and Kraemer, 2000; Krishnan and
Sriram, 2000), others postulate that increasing IT spending poses a considerable financial
burden and may, ultimately, impair profitability (Loveman, 1994; Brynjolfsson and Hitt,
1996; Clegg, Axtell, Damodaran, Farbey, Hull, Lloyd-Jones, Nicholls, Sell, and Tomlinson,
1997). For example, using a sample of 737 European banks over the period of 1995–2000,
Beccalli (2007) analyzes whether IT expenditure leads to improved performance, which is
measured using both standard accounting ratios and cost-profit efficiency measures. Her
empirical results indicate little relationship between total IT expenditure and improved bank
profitability or efficiency.
5
Martin-Oliver and Salas-Fumás (2008) additionally assess whether increased IT
expenditure contributes to improved productivity measures in banks. Following conventional
production specification, IT capital, along with other inputs
6
, is used as an independent
variable to explain the dependent (output) variables (i.e., the natural log of the sum of loans
and deposits). Their results indicate that IT capital is positively and significantly related to
the output measures; specifically, the increase in the stock of IT capital explains one-third of
that of the sum of loans and deposits. However, they fail to find supporting evidence when
4 “Both the Internet and the financial services industry are undergoing rapid technological changes, with
frequent introduction of new technology-driven products and services. In addition to improving the ability
to serve customers, the effective use of technology increases efficiency and enables financial institutions
to reduce costs. Our ability to compete will depend, in part, upon our ability to address the needs of our
customers by using technology to provide products and services that will satisfy customer demands.
Many of our competitors have substantially greater resources to invest in technological improvements…”
excerpted from the 2008 Form 10-K of the Bancorp, Inc.
5 In an attempt to identify any positive impact, Beccalli (2007) further suggests that greater emphasis
should be placed on the nature of different types of IT expenditures, rather than treating them as a
generality. Hence, three categories of IT expenditures (to test for any difference in their association with
profitability measures) are defined: computer hardware (HA), software (SO), and services (SE). Her
results show that the sign on the hardware and software expenditure is statistically negative, whereas the
coefficient on IT services is positive. It is suggested that the opportunities related to expenditures in
hardware and software can only be fully exploited when acquired together with external IT services.
6 These control input variables include labor capital, physical capital, and the number of bank branches.