Graham Fraser & Kevin Peachey
Ian Stuart said the HSBC banking group is spending hundreds of millions of pounds on its IT systems
The boss of one of the UK's biggest banks has said the threat of cyber-attacks "keeps me awake at night".
Ian Stuart, the CEO of HSBC UK, said cyber-security was "top of the agenda" for his banking group, and dealing with IT vulnerabilities was an "enormous" expense for the sector as a whole.
He said: "It does worry me - we can be attacked and we are being attacked all the time."
Mr Stuart and other bank bosses have been speaking to the Commons Treasury Committee which has been taking evidence on a range of issues affecting the industry, including how vulnerable it is to outages and cyber-attacks.
In March, it emerged nine major banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated at least 803 hours - the equivalent of 33 days - of tech outages in the past two years.
In recent weeks, retailers Co-op and Marks & Spencer have experienced severe disruption after being targeted by hackers.
Lisa Forte, of the cyber-security company Red Goat, told BBC News that Mr Stuart had made "an incredibly important point".
"Cyber-attacks are increasing in both number and severity," she said.
"Criminals are monetising attacks more efficiently, and we are at a point now where it very much is when not if businesses will experience an attack."
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