The investment management industry is going through a big change in culture due to the increasing use of the internet. Internet Banking has been established many years ago and the trend now moves to the use of social media for client advisors in institutional asset management/private banking who try to better communicate with their clients about performance, changes in the strategy, new products etc. So far the so called "trust" and "confidentiality" factor have prevented many firms to extensively use the internet in order to win prospective clients or to service them through this media. However globalization, time constraints of investors and mobility forces most of the companies to track their clients and still be in regular contact with them.
That trend carries a high risk of data diffusion about strategies, investments, personal data that some companies have not fully covered. The example of Germany obtaining data through an ex-employee of a bank who sold the data shows that this information should have been protected much more than it obviously was. Also the awareness among client advisors, portfolio managers and also back office employees needs to be increased and regular training should be performed.
Only the big "household" names in the industry (such as JP Morgan, Fidelity, Waddell & Reed, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs etc) have established internal policies about IT security. However there are more and more small asset management firms out there who either don't have the time or do not want to spend the money to focus more on data issues and can therefore be exposed to an information loss that might have severe consequences on their overall business.
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