The news: SitusAMC—a vendor to banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Morgan Stanley—had a data breach whose scope and severity it’s still investigating. The compromised data was related to residential mortgages and may include Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information. SitusAMC also has sensitive data related to the banks’ real estate loan portfolios.

Zoom out: Data breaches in financial services have recently made headlines.

• Mortgage lender loanDepot reported a ransomware attack in 2024 that exposed sensitive information and affected 16.9 million people.
• Evolve Bank & Trust, a fintech partner bank whose problems never seem to end, disclosed a data breach in 2024 that affected about 7.6 million people.
• Debt collector Financial Business & Consumer Solutions reported in 2024 that the data of about 4.2 million customers was exposed.
• Flagstar Bank, which now has $92 billion in assets, was breached in 2021, affecting more than 1.5 million people—the second time it reported a cybersecurity breach that year.

In addition, some of the largest known data breaches that financial services companies reported in the past decade include First American Financial Corporation in 2019 (885 million consumer records), CapitalOne in 2019 (106 million consumers in the US and Canada) and Equifax in 2017 (17.9 million consumer records).

Trendspotting: Bank-grade security isn’t a potent trust factor when financial services companies fail to protect customer data—and it shows. According to a 2025 global survey, 32% of respondents ages 16 to 24 trust banks with their personal data versus 51% 55 and older.

Our take: The government has noted that banks aren’t done addressing the issue of cybersecurity in the financial services industry.

Even the best-prepared financial services companies need to be ready to respond to data breaches. Vague assurances before or after a breach suggest bankers aren’t paying attention to necessary details. They must be explicit and transparent about safeguards and breach remediation.

Stay tuned: Watch for our upcoming 2025 US Banking Consumer Habits Survey, which will include data on how consumers feel about the safety and security of their personal data, preference for data use, and protection from fraud.