The use of data security in the life and pensions industry is too low, an IT and business services company has asserted.

Such businesses were prospectively losing protection on the industry's market share by only dedicating an average of seven per cent of IT budget spending to services such as data loss protection and disaster recovery, according to recent research by Logica.

Cost-effective and simple techniques were all that was needed to increase market share, dramatically reduce any data leak risks and increase revenues said Andrew Lloyd, director of strategic solutions in the financial services division of the company.

"For example, digital signatures are now widely used in the banking industry, eliminating the need for physical signatures, while at the same time speeding up the sales process," he surmised.

Previous Logica boss Martin Read was hired by the government to look into any instances of poor IT practice in its departments, the Register revealed earlier this year.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.