In the search for someone to blame for the problems gripping the world’s financial system, there is one scapegoat that cannot answer back: the machines.

For a decade, investment banks, traders and exchanges have been engaged in a technology arms race, in which the fastest computers net the biggest profits. This year alone, Aite Group, a Massachusetts consulting firm, predicts that capital market players will invest $41.8bn in IT, and reckons spending growth will continue at an average 9.8 per cent a year.