For banks, the cost of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance came from hiring additional staff, and not from investments in technology, according to a study by the Risk Management Institute.
The survey showed that two-thirds of banks reported that less than 10 percent of their cost of compliance came from IT. Hiring staff or diverting existing staff accounted for the bulk of their costs.
SOX-related costs averaged $422,600 at smaller banks (i.e., with assets less than $15 billion) and $4,553,800 at larger banks.
