Financial regulation and compliance are using up 15% of the Support staff at investment bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, according to Stephen Ashburton, director of global IT business.

Speaking at Finexpo, a conference dedicated to IT in finance, Mr Ashburton refused to quote a monetary cost. However his comments are only one amongst a clamour about the cost of regulation.

The staff are in IT, operations and compliance. Issues include, Sarbanes-Oxley, International Financial Reporting Standards and Basel II.

Sarbanes-Oxley, was singled out as a significant drain on resources. A particular difficulty was "selling it to some poor bloke in the finance department who has nothing to do with the US and has no idea about Sarbanes-Oxley".

Part of the problem, he finds is the complexity of the modern financial IT infrastructure. Over years this has been built in silos, with different systems and business units.

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