Ethical Gaps in the Financial Services Sector

LRN’s 2025 Ethics & Compliance Program Effectiveness Report for the financial services sector reveals critical shortfalls in ethical decision-making, measurement of ethical culture, and supply chain compliance. Based on comprehensive benchmark data, this report identifies alarming gaps between executive-level ethics and day-to-day implementation that demand urgent attention as financial institutions navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.

Key findings include:

• A significant ethics gap where 91% of executives consistently make decisions aligned with company values, but only 28% of middle managers do the same — a 63-point gap that’s 1.5 times higher than the global average.
• Financial services firms lag behind global counterparts in measuring ethical culture, with only 40% of high-impact programs regularly assessing this critical area compared to 45% globally.
• Supply chain risk oversight is underprioritized, with high-impact financial services programs trailing their global peers by 11 percentage points in strengthening third-party compliance despite increasing regulatory scrutiny.
• Financial services organizations are 9%-15% behind high-impact global programs in leveraging benchmarking, analytics, and real-time insights to strengthen compliance effectiveness.

This sector-specific report provides detailed insights into the ethical gaps financial institutions must address in 2025 and the strategies high-performing firms are using to close them.