The upward trend has been accelerated by recent high-profile scandals involving internal and external fraud which have highlighted the vulnerabilities of the financial services industry.

According to Chartis research, which compiled the spending projections, financial institutions, consumers and regulators have recognised that financial crime is becoming more complex and is now perpetrated by a different class of criminal - one who is increasingly sophisticated and using technology as part of their ammunition.

Concurrently, Chartis said, the current global recession will increase the frequency of internal fraud, security breaches and false accounting.

Unfortunately, the research concludes that despite the mission-critical nature of financial crime risk management systems, most financial crime institutions continue to have a silo-based point-solution approach.

The norm is to have multiple anti-fraud and anti-money laundering systems, across different business units, communication channels and using multiple databases.

This creates extra expense, inefficiencies and data quality issues across enterprises. Further, it inhibits a firm's ability to create the links and intelligence required to combat sophisticated criminals.

- Mark Phillips