The financial sector is increasing its investment in IT training to satisfy the requirements of regulatory compliance, a survey claims.

According to the study by training provider Thomson NETg, financial businesses boosted spending on IT in 2005, the first time since the post-2000 slump.

A large chunk of this has funded e-learning programmes, which the training body claims is now affordable for wider use across the business.

Marketing director of Thomson NETg Mike Summers outlined the benefits for organisations of using e-learning: "The financial sector is attracted to e-learning because you are reducing staff downtime.”

Summers suggested this showed an improvement in the quality of the workforce, as employers seek staff that are likely to adopt such skills easily: “They tend to hire a higher grade of people who are well motivated and take well to e-learning."