Software AG (Frankfurt TecDAX: SOW) today released its top five predictions for the banking industry. Laura Crozier, CFA, global industry director, Banking, of Software AG noted: “There will be some seismic shifts in the banking industry in 2017 as threats and opportunities from digital banks, fintechs and regulation continue to shake up the landscape.”

While data breaches destroy customer confidence, impact revenues, attract large regulatory fines and cost C-levels their jobs, 76% of data security professionals believe in the maturity of their data security strategy, according to a new study. Despite heavy investments in a variety of data security tools as part of their strategy, 93% report persistent technical challenges in protecting data.

According to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, total spending on IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switches) for deployment in cloud environments will increase by 18.2% in 2017 to reach $44.2 billion. Of this amount, the majority (61.2%) will be done by public cloud datacenters, while off-premises private cloud environments will contribute 14.6% of spending. With increasing adoption of private and hybrid cloud strategies within corporate datacenters, spending on IT infrastructure for on-premises private cloud deployments will growth at 16.6%. In comparison, spending on traditional, non-cloud, IT infrastructure will decline by 3.3% in 2017 but will still account for the largest share (57.1%) of end user spending. (Note: All figures above exclude double counting between server and storage.)

Tripwire, Inc., a leading global provider of security and compliance solutions for enterprises and industrial organizations, today announced the results of an extensive Tripwire study conducted by Dimensional Research. The study evaluated key challenges that organizations must address in order to optimize their cyber security and compliance programs. Study respondents included over 500 IT security professionals.

A failure to grasp how data is used across the business is one of the most common barriers facing large enterprises today, according to a new whitepaper published by GoldenSource.

Research has revealed that more than two-thirds of data management leaders say they have an effective data strategy and an effective approach to data cleansing and analytics, compared to around 10 per cent of laggards. However, there are as many laggards as leaders across most industries, revealing how many companies are falling short in data management. With research from CEBR[i] showing that the value to the UK economy of big data analytics and the Internet of Things combined could accumulate to £322 billion between 2015 and 2020, organisations are urgently seeking ways to overcome growing volumes and varieties of data to exploit its full potential.

UK organisations that have a well-defined data strategy reported their company's financial performance as substantially ahead of peers in the most recent financial year. The findings emerged from research entitled 'Big data: Forging corporate capabilities for the long-term', a SAS research programme based on a survey conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit.