Banking sector has spent billions of dollars in Information Technology (IT). Competition and rivalry have been considered the main reasons to justify them. However, whether the investments done in IT actually bring real benefits to the organizations is still a matter of debate in the academy. This study evaluates the efficiency of 74 Brazilian banks, regarding their investments on IT. The proposed model is based on the non-parametric technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which analyze the conversion of the IT investments (inputs) to specific outcomes (outputs) - pointing out both successful and unsuccessful indicators. We found that (a) banks which most invested in IT show better efficiency rates; (b) banks classified by capital as "Private and National with foreign share" and "Foreign" show the highest efficiency rates in the global stage; and (c) No "State Public" bank is classified as efficient.
DEA; Information Technology; banks
