Spending on financial crime management solutions is set to reach $4.3 billion by 2015, up from $2.9 billion in 2010, according to a report from IDC.

IDC’s assessment covers vendors of IT solutions that anticipate, detect, analyse, and prevent fraudulent transactions, money laundering, and employee financial misconduct. These suppliers include Detica, IBM, Oracle, and SAS, as well as more specialised vendors such as ACI Worldwide, Fidelity National Insurance Services, Fiserv, Memento Security and NICE Actimize.

The research identified Memento Security as the market leader, based on qualities such R&D investment and customer service. Memento had a strong advantage due to its ability to work with any form of data provided by the customer, IDC found.

Detica, a division of UK engineering giant BAE Systems, is in danger of slipping of IDC’s ‘major players’ band and into ‘contenders’, the company said, although it offered little explanation why.

Michael Versace, IDC research director and author of the report, said that managing financial crime ought to be the priority for compliance, risk and IT professionals in the financial sector.

"The business imperatives for this top priority are almost too long to list," Versace said. "Whether driven by the increased awareness of terrorist financing post 9/11, the increased insensitivity to fraud activities from outside and inside the financial enterprise, or the reduced tolerance for loss and the need to modernise legacy platforms…financial crimes management [spending] cannot afford to be reduced for the foreseeable future."