Mentions of cybersecurity within the filings of companies in the retail banking industry were 34% higher in the fourth quarter of 2021 than in Q4 of 2020.

In total, the frequency of sentences related to cybersecurity during 2021 was 146% higher than in 2016 when GlobalData, from whom our data for this article is taken, first began to track the key issues referred to in company filings.

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When retail banking companies publish annual and quarterly reports, ESG reports and other filings, GlobalData analyses the text and identifies individual sentences that relate to disruptive forces facing companies in the coming years. Cybersecurity is one of these topics - companies that excel and invest in these areas are thought to be better prepared for the future business landscape and better equipped to survive unforeseen challenges.

To assess whether cybersecurity is featuring more in the summaries and strategies of retail banking companies, two measures were calculated. Firstly, we looked at the percentage of companies which have mentioned cybersecurity at least once in filings during the past twelve months - this was 92% compared to 81% in 2016. Secondly, we calculated the percentage of total analysed sentences that referred to cybersecurity.

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Of the 10 biggest employers in the retail banking industry, Sberbank was the company which referred to cybersecurity the most during 2021. GlobalData identified 83 cybersecurity-related sentences in the Russia-based company's filings - 0.9% of all sentences. JPM mentioned cybersecurity the second most - the issue was referred to in 0.5% of sentences in the company's filings. Other top employers with high cybersecurity mentions included Citigroup, WFC and HSBC.

Across all retail banking companies the filing published in the fourth quarter of 2021 which exhibited the greatest focus on cybersecurity came from W. R. Berkley. Of the document's 1,182 sentences, 23 (1.9%) referred to cybersecurity.

This analysis provides an approximate indication of which companies are focusing on cybersecurity and how important the issue is considered within the retail banking industry, but it also has limitations and should be interpreted carefully. For example, a company mentioning cybersecurity more regularly is not necessarily proof that they are utilising new techniques or prioritising the issue, nor does it indicate whether the company's ventures into cybersecurity have been successes or failures.

GlobalData also categorises cybersecurity mentions by a series of subthemes. Of these subthemes, the most commonly referred to topic in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 'data security', which made up 70% of all cybersecurity subtheme mentions by retail banking companies.