A regulatory expert from professional services firm PwC is to speak at a Bermuda-based international conference today.

Anthony Conte, asset and wealth management regulatory leader at PwC US, will discuss cybersecurity for investment advisers at the Regulatory Compliance Association’s meeting on regulation, operations and compliance symposium.

Scott Watson-Brown, PwC Bermuda asset management leader, said: “This is the second year the symposium is being held in Bermuda and PwC is pleased to again be a sponsor of this important gathering of chief compliance officers from the leading 100 hedge funds and private equity firms.”

He added: “While many companies have developed formal risk assessments and control frameworks, regular monitoring, testing and adaptation needs to occur to ensure relevance to the risk and threats to an organisation.

“Action on economic crime is not the responsibility of one person or team, it must be embedded within an organisation’s structure.”

Hundreds of alternative investment executives in the top 200 firms are expected to be at the two-day conference, to be held at the Fairmont Southampton.

PwC’s global economic crime survey found that more than one in three organisations had been the victim of economic crime in the last two years — with cybercrime affecting almost a third of firms, the highest-ever level in the biennial survey.

But the report also found that most companies are still not adequately prepared, or even understand the risk, with just 37 per cent of organisations with a cyberincident response plan.

And — despite major financial losses linked to cybercrime — respondents to the survey said they believed the biggest impact to their organisations came from damage to their reputations and legal, investment and enforcement costs.