Financial services employees are inadvertently putting company and customer data at risk through their communication channels, with a third using new collaboration tools and platforms to share strategic plans regarding their company.

This is according to a survey among 1,569 respondents - 780 in the UK and 789 in the US - commissioned by Symphony Communication Services, which also found 40 per cent shared information regarding a customer and 30 per cent shared financial information regarding their own employer.

The report warned that many collaboration platforms are not protected with end-to-end encryption, and employees using them to share sensitive data points towards a gap in security knowledge.

Despite the fact that 94 per cent of survey respondents have confidence that information shared via these platforms is safe from external eyes, 28 per cent of the financial services professional surveyed were not even aware of their employer’s own IT security guidelines.

“Financial services is about transactions and efficiency, and market workers have always been innovators when it comes to communication and speed,” noted Jonathan Christensen, chief experience officer at Symphony. “They adopt these tools for the ease and speed they offered but without regard to privacy, security, or compliance.”

The use of these tools helps to accommodate a new remote way of working, but while this is a positive move in powering the modern workforce, this also presents its own security and compliance challenges, with 38 per cent admitting to accessing these tools from their personal computer and 12 per cent using a publicly-available computer.

“Taking core capabilities away with draconian IT policies is not the way forward,” said Christensen. “Workers need responsive, flexible collaboration platforms that are also safe to get their jobs done.”

The survey also found that only 31 per cent were very confident they always stuck to company security guidelines, while 24 per cent had shared information for HR, including personal salary information, contracts and reviews.

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