13 May 2015 Insurance

Cyber security worries will drive investment

Nearly nine in 10 financial services firms plan to increase their investment in risk-management capabilities in the next two years in response to emerging risks of cyber security and fraud, according to a new report from Accenture.

The Accenture 2015 Global Risk Management Study — based on a survey of more than 450 senior risk-management executives in the banking, capital markets and insurance industries — found that 86 percent of respondents said their organisations plan to increase their investment in risk-management capabilities in the next two years, with one in four (26 percent) planning to increase it by more than 20 percent.

In addition, three in 10 respondents (29 percent) said their companies plan to increase by more than 20 percent their investment in Cloud/Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and big data and analytics.

The report found clear evidence of the increasing impact that cyber security and fraud is having on financial services firms’ business and the risk-management function in particular.

More than one-third (34 percent) of respondents said that understanding cyber risk will be the most-needed capability in their risk function. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of respondents said that cyber/IT risk will have an increased impact on their business in the next two years, with 26 percent saying that the increase would be significant.

“The combination of market forces, advances in technology and customer demands are pushing financial institutions to become more digital and requiring a broader range of skills from today’s risk management professionals,” said Steve Culp, senior global managing director for Accenture Finance and Risk Services.

“Financial services firms are struggling to keep pace with the demand for people with highly specialized skills, such as cyber risk experts, business analysts, security specialists and fraud experts. To fill these gaps, most firms will have to look outside of their organizations — and the competition for the right people is increasingly intense."

Already registered?

Login to your account

To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.

Two Weeks Free Trial

For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Elliot Field at efield@newtonmedia.co.uk or Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk