Australia's major banks spend billions of dollars each year on technology - but they should not expect a sustainable competitive advantage in return.Speaking at a Trans-Tasman Business Circle event in Sydney yesterday, Jarrod Martin, Credit Suisse banking sector director, said that with regard to "the concept of a sustainable competitive advantage driven solely by technology, the market and myself don't believe it exists."We also believe that to some extent there is a winner's curse. If the banking strategy is based on being the most innovative in technology or the first to market then what will happen is you will spend twice as much as the fast follower, and the advantage you get will only last for half the amount of time."He said that had been evidenced by the CBA's much vaunted Kaching smartphone payments app which, although being among the first of its kind, had since been replaced and the cost of the original investment written down."That's where the investment community goes 'we don't want to see the innovation just for the sake of it'."Phil Chronican, CEO Australia for ANZ, also spoke at the event. Unlike CBA, Westpac and NAB, ANZ has famously declared that overhauling its core banking platform is not a priority given the bank's pan Asia business strategy. It is also the only one of the four majors currently without a permanent chief information officer as the search continues to replace outgoing CIO Anne Weatherston.Chronican said part of the reason for the different technology strategies at the banks was that "we approach the market in different ways."I'm sceptical about any lasting differences, because while technology is important, it's not 100 per cent our business model."He said that although technology was important, technology trailblazers suffered from a second dose of "winners curse" as, "if you are first out, you get all the early adopters who are the most likely to change."Despite the lack of sustainable competitive advantage, Martin said the market did value investment in technology to streamline a process and lower the cost of doing business. However, he noted that the market was still sceptical enough to capitalise only half of the anticipated savings at the time of any announcement."The key thing the market will pay for is execution. If you can execute clearly and uniformly the market pays for execution of a strategy as opposed to how sexy your strategy is."The trick for the banks was to be something of a technology goldilocks, as being last to market could be equally as risky as being first, according to Martin."Where the financial outcome becomes important is if a bank is left behind on technology and has to catch up in terms of expenses and investment, or left behind in providing a customer need and loses market share on a structural rather than a cyclical basis," he said.