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The boss of one of the UK’s biggest banks has said the threat of cyber-attacks “keeps me awake at night”.<\/p>\n
Ian Stuart, the CEO of HSBC UK, said cyber-security was “top of the agenda” for his banking group, and dealing with IT vulnerabilities was an “enormous” expense for the sector as a whole.<\/p>\n
He said: “It does worry me – we can be attacked and we are being attacked all the time.”<\/p>\n
Mr Stuart and other bank bosses have been speaking to the Commons Treasury Committee which has been taking evidence on a range of issues affecting the industry, including how vulnerable it is to outages and cyber-attacks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In March, it emerged nine major banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated at least 803 hours<\/a> – the equivalent of 33 days – of tech outages in the past two years.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, retailers Co-op and Marks and Spencer have experienced severe disruption after being targeted by hackers.<\/p>\n Lisa Forte, of the cyber-security company Red Goat, told BBC News that Mr Stuart had made “an incredibly important point”.<\/p>\n “Cyber-attacks are increasing in both number and severity,” she said.<\/p>\n “Criminals are monetising attacks more efficiently and we are at a point now where it very much is when not if businesses will experience an attack.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr Stuart said his banking group was spending hundreds of millions of pounds improving its IT systems.<\/p>\n “I think the amount of money banks – all of us – will be putting into our systems is enormous,” he said. <\/p>\n “The defence mechanisms you put in are absolutely critical.”<\/p>\n Across his group, he said they are processing 1000 payments a second while making 8000 IT changes and updates every week.<\/p>\n Prof Oli Buckley, a cyber-security expert at Loughborough University, said cyber-attacks on financial institutions were “relentless” and “increasingly sophisticated”.<\/p>\n “Ian Stuart is definitely right to highlight cyber-security as a major concern for the banking sector, but recent events within retail have been a stark reminder that it can impact every sector,” he added.<\/p>\n “It goes beyond just protecting customer data, it’s about maintaining trust in the entire financial system. A breach doesn’t just risk individual accounts; it can ripple through markets, reputations, public confidence and beyond.”<\/p>\n Barclays, Lloyds, Nationwide, Santander, NatWest, Danske Bank, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank have also provided information to the committee.<\/p>\n Between January 2023 and February this year, they experienced 158 IT failures between them.<\/p>\n Vim Maru, CEO of Barclays, addressed MPS about the Barclays outage which occurred on what was January pay day<\/a> for many people. <\/p>\n Serious IT problems affected online banking for several days, left some people unable to move home – and could result in the bank facing compensation payments of \u00a312.5m, a report has found.<\/a><\/p>\n Mr Maru apologised to customers, saying he was “deeply sorry for the disruption”. He said there was no evidence it was caused a cyber incident or a malicious act.<\/p>\n Following the Barclays incident in January, about 1.2m people in the UK were then affected by further banking outages in February. <\/p>\n Those problems occurred at Lloyds, TSB, Nationwide and HSBC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n