It showed Australia and Asia-Pacific led the world when it comes to prioritising governance on IT security and that they believe their expenditure on information security is on or above plan.

The study surveyed more than 250 financial services organisations from 39 countries.

With the exception of Canada and Japan, more than 50 per cent of the respondents reported an increase in their information security budgets.

Although one in three financial institutions in Asia-Pacific endured privacy related breaches in the last year, the statistics were much higher in the rest of the world.

Companies in the US reported 50 per cent of all financial institutions were breached, and in the UK more than two out of three organisations were breached.