Accenture Survey Says Firms Expect Compliance Costs to Continue Rising

A new report by consulting firm Accenture says 89 percent of financial services industry executives globally expect continued cost increases in their compliance departments over the next two years, based on a survey of 150 compliance executives conducted between December 2016 and January 2017. Among the executives predicting the continuation of higher spending on compliance over the next two years, 48 percent anticipate increases of 10 percent to 20 percent and nearly one in five expect increases of more than 20 percent, according to Accenture’s report. The number of institutions that currently spend more than 5 percent of their net income on compliance jumped from 16 percent in December 2015 to 23 percent in December 2016, despite compliance headcount numbers largely remaining flat. When asked to identify the top three compliance risks they believe will be the most challenging for their organization to manage within the next 12 months, respondents most often cited fraud and financial crime risk (cited by 48 percent of respondents), business risk (47 percent) and cyber risk (45 percent).