Investment in managing financial crime and compliance remains a high priority, with a significant uptick in planned expenditure for 2013, according to Detica NetReveal.


Fraud management is a key area with 86% of respondents forecasting budget growth (compared to 45% in 2012 and 47% in 2011) and highlighting the application process, payments, the online channel and insider fraud as priority areas of focus.

For anti-money laundering (AML), 84% expected increased budget in 2013 (compared to 34% in 2012 and 38% in 2011) but many organizations are still grappling with the effectiveness of automated detection systems.

Financial institutions are also reacting to impending legislation such as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), although 44% of respondents are still evaluating the impact of the legislation, and recent regulatory enforcements which registered record fines for Tier 1 financial institutions in 2012.

The outlook for continued investment in financial crime detection and prevention remains positive for 2013, with anticipated annual growth well in excess of previous years. On average 83% of respondents expect an increase in their financial crime and compliance budgets, compared with 42% in both 2011 and 2010. Cross industry data sharing is becoming more common place with just less than 50% of respondents operating some kind of data sharing scheme but privacy laws and data protection are often cited as a barrier to data sharing.

George Robbins, UK General Manager & Director, Detica NetReveal said: “As the financial services industry stabilizes, we are seeing strong evidence of investment catch-up, with financial institutions increasingly recognizing the power of advanced technology to identify and prevent fraud. Regulatory pressures continue to drive compliance budgets, along with new challenges such as Fatca now firmly on the horizon and generating new waves of activity.”